Crypto exchanges glitched out from Bitcoin fueled surge thanks to Elon

Elon Musk knows how to make an impact, with the SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO tweeting about Dogecoin and seeing the price skyrocket towards the moon -- and then, he announced through Tesla that the EV giant would be accepting Bitcoin as payment in the future.

The news of Tesla accepting Bitcoin as a payment, along with the fact that the company revealed it purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin saw the cryptocurrency surge from around $40K to $44K almost instantly. It has barely been 12 hours and in that time cryptocurrency exchanges were having technical issues dealing with the amount of traffic on their platforms.

• Read more: Tesla will accept Bitcoin as payment in future, buys $1.5B in Bitcoin

Kraken, a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, had to temporarily disable sign-ups after they had a huge surge of traffic after the Elon + Tesla one-two punch to the moon for Bitcoin. Other crypto exchanges like Gemini and Binance had similar issues, with a Kraken spokesperson explained in an email to Reuters: "The recent run-up far exceeded anticipated increases in demand, up over five-fold from previous all-time highs".