Bitcoin fell as much as 11pc on Thursday, currently sitting on its lowest level in nearly three weeks at just $30,000 (Sh 3,386,173).
Also Read: Bitcoin Breaches $30,000, Will it hit $50k in 2021?
The decline was witnessed after a debunked report from BitMEX Research on Wednesday suggested that a critical flaw called “double spend” had occurred in the Bitcoin blockchain.
Double spend is a case scenario where an owner of Bitcoin is able to spend the same bitcoin twice. It is a scenario that was thought to have solved the issue when Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper in 2009.
“This is part of the normal operation of the blockchain to allow for a highly parallel system,” said Jacob Illum, chief scientist at researcher Chainalysis. “Occasionally, the Bitcoin blockchain will have competing mined blocks, but only one chain-forming from competing blocks will be accepted by the network.”
Experts have cautioned that a sustained drop could presage further losses. The largest cryptocurrency is on course for one of its worst weeks since the pandemic roiled financial markets in March last year.
Guggenheim’s CIO Scott Minerd thinks bitcoin maybe have topped temporarily, saying that a retrace to $20,000 is possible.
