Bitcoin leaped more than 10 percent overnight into record territory, significantly strengthening against its offshoot “bitcoin cash” amid a hack on the new currency’s network.
Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $3,242.82 early Saturday morning Eastern Time, according to CoinDesk, before paring its gains slightly to hover near $3,172, with a market capitalization of more than $52 billion.
The digital currency has now more than tripled in value for the year, and gained more than 10 percent in the first few days of August. Bitcoin has broken free of the trading range its held ever since reaching its prior record of $3,025 in mid-June.
There was no clear reason for the overnight break higher in bitcoin’s price to all-time highs.
Another digital currency, ethereum, climbed nearly 7 percent to $238 Saturday morning, according to CoinDesk.
Bitcoin year-to-date performance
Source: CoinDesk
On Tuesday, Bitcoin split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash when a minority of developers went ahead with an alternative upgrade proposal. Investors holding bitcoin at the time of the split should have received an equal amount of bitcoin cash, and were able to trade it Tuesday. However, some major exchanges only began accepting bitcoin cash deposits Thursday and Friday.
ViaBTC, the Chinese exchange that’s been the main proponent for bitcoin cash, tweeted at 4:03 a.m. that it temporarily suspended withdrawals due to a ” transaction malleability attack” on the bitcoin cash network.
ViaBTC tweeted at 8:44 a.m. that it resumed withdrawals.
Bitcoin cash plunged nearly 36 percent Friday, falling about 9 percent to overnight to a low of $212. It recovered slightly to $226 Saturday morning, according to CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin cash 1-week performance
Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin Magazine pointed out Saturday morning that ViaBTC mining activity — which creates more of a digital currency — for bitcoin cash dropped to a tenth of what it was in the last few days, while most of the mining activity was concentrated on the original bitcoin.
Source: Tech CNBC
Bitcoin sets new record above K, more than tripling in 2017 amid 'bitcoin cash' struggles