Cloudflare Outage Forces a Slow Beat Across the Trading Industry

On November 18, 2025, a global Cloudflare outage once again reminded the financial community that the stability of Internet infrastructure is a systemic risk that cannot be ignored in financial services.

Cloudflare experienced an "internal service degradation" across its network, causing many customer websites to return 5xx errors. The outage lasted for several hours, with community reports noting durations of up to approximately 5 hours and 25 minutes.

According to Cloudflare's official post-event report, the outage was not caused by external malicious attacks. Instead, it was triggered by an auto-generated file used to manage bot traffic (threat traffic configuration) that "abnormally inflated." When propagated across multiple nodes in the Cloudflare network, it caused a system-wide collapse.

Industry observers noted that some CFD brokers' websites became inaccessible in multiple regions, and certain users were unable to make deposits or withdrawals. Forex community websites, such as Forex Factory, also reported errors during the outage.

Although some brokers stated that their front-end websites had "basically stabilized," the interruption of payment channels revealed the fragility of trading infrastructure. Some brokers reported being unable to process customer funds normally for several hours.

For traders who rely heavily on real-time access, this meant: being unable to open market pages, deposits not arriving, inability to access trading platforms for closing positions, and even common analysis websites being inaccessible. These are not market risks per se, but they can affect trading decisions and sentiment.

The financial community's "Hidden Dependencies" Exposed

This is not the first time infrastructure providers have experienced large-scale outages. In 2024, a similar full-scale IP outage occurred, which was covered in detail by the Forex B2B platform Fazzaco.

Infrastructure risk is not an abstract concept; it can manifest on any ordinary workday as simply "pages not loading."

Cloudflare is not a service provider for the trading industry, yet it is relied upon by many trading platforms, KYC providers, market data sites, payment channels, and communication tools. In a chain of technical providers like this, any delay in one link can cause bottlenecks across a broker's entire business process.

Crypto, DePIN, and a Rethink of Decentralized Infrastructure

In the crypto space, the outage sparked considerable discussion. CoinDesk reported that multiple crypto platforms, such as Arbiscan and DefiLlama, experienced downtime.

At the same time, the event renewed attention on DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks). The vulnerability of centralized network providers has prompted more voices advocating for more decentralized and resilient infrastructure.

For brokers and traders, this is not an abstract technical debate but a real systemic risk. In the future, a fully decentralized infrastructure layer could help reduce reliance on a single infrastructure provider.

In the long run, brokers that proactively implement infrastructure diversification, resilient design, and crisis communication will handle similar shocks more smoothly. Traders, meanwhile, can incorporate "infrastructure service risk" into their risk management framework: not only considering asset risks but also the platforms and channels through which they access the market.