Blockchain.info down due to database glitch

Through all of the turbulence around bitcoin in the last few months, the public block chain database at Blockchain.info has been a rare bastion of stability. Late last night, however, a user on Reddit encountered a glitch in the Blockchain Shared Coin service, which quickly caught the attention of Blockchain developers. In investigating the Shared Coin glitch, Blockchain uncovered a deeper issue with their database, resulting in the site being taken offline.

Unlike other troubling glitches, such as the transaction malleability bug that brought down Mt.Gox and a few smaller exchanges, the Blockchain.info situation is unlikely to have serious repercussions. Blockchain was very quick to point out that this was a result of a bug in their database, not a hack, and that the fix “will still take some time to resolve.”

While the downtime does affect Blockchain’s services as a wallet provider, the company was quick to point out that it does not hold keys to user accounts. All funds are safe, and users could access their accounts simply by importing the private keys into another wallet.

Regarding wallet backups, you should have received an encrypted copy of your wallet backup every time you make a change to your wallet. Or if you have connected with your Google Drive or Dropbox, the encrypted backups can be found there. See the previous post regarding how to import this into a Multibit wallet. If you had none of these turned on, then while your backups and bitcions are 100% safe & secure, please wait for our services to be restored.

The Blockchain.info team has slowly been restoring the site’s functionality all day, and normal service is expected to return this afternoon.