Bitcoin price stays flat following outage at Bitfinex exchange and huge value fall on Tuesday
The bitcoin price hovered between $660 (£449) and $670 for much of Wednesday, failing to make more than modest gains after the cryptocurrency fell by 10 per cent in value on Tuesday.
By 1pm (GMT), bitcoin was trading just over $663, according to the Bitstamp price index. Last Thursday it reached a more than two-year price high after it edged above $773.
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An outage at the Hong Kong-based trading index Bitfinex, which it said was related to "server migration issues" following maintenance work last week, was a major reason behind the cryptocurrency's price tumble yesterday. Bitfinex is the largest exchange by volume.
"Bitcoin's recent gains pulled back as one of the larger USD to Bitcoin exchanges went offline for a few hours, while skittish investors spooked by recent issues in a related crypto project, the DAO, meant increased selling across all Bitcoin markets," Charles Hayter, founder of CryptoCompare, told CityAM
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"A rally pared losses as the exchange came back online to traders relief."
Less than a fortnight ago bitcoin was trading below $600, before spiking more than 20 per cent because of an explosion of demand in China and the upcoming halving or "halvening" event that will reduce the amount of bitcoins produced by mining.