Largest U.S. Bitcoin exchange halts trading as cryptocurrencies plummet
Coinbase -- the largest Bitcoin market in the U.S. -- has disabled all buying and selling as the digital currency Bitcoin dramatically loses value.
At 11:11 a.m. EST, Coinbase posted that it had temporarally disabled trading:
All buys and sells have been temporarily disabled. We are working on a fix and apologize for any inconvenience.
About 25 minutes later, at 11:35 a.m. EST, the company said it's still monitoring the problem:
Due to today's high traffic, buys and sells may be temporarily offline. We're working on restoring full availability as soon as possible.
This "high traffic" is largely in reference to activity in the Bitcoin market. Bitcoin is the world's highest-valued currency, as one Bitcoin hit nearly $20,000 this December.
But it's lost about a quarter of its value in the last 24 hours and the fickle currency is now trading at around $12,874 -- and some exchanges around $11,000.
Other cryptocurrencies have followed the pattern: Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin cash have all lost a quarter of their value over the last day.
All of this frenetic activity likely overburdened Coinbase's services -- something it might better account for going forward: New currencies are inherently unstable, and the today's cryptocurrencies will be swinging up and down for quite some time.
Topics Bitcoin
Mark was the science editor at Mashable. After working as a ranger with the National Park Service, he started a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating people about the happenings on Earth, and beyond.
He's descended 2,500 feet into the ocean depths in search of the sixgill shark, ventured into the halls of top R&D laboratories, and interviewed some of the most fascinating scientists in the world.
