The world's most valuable cryptocurrency has split in two 5 Hours Ago | 01:19
Bitcoin traded slightly lower Tuesday as digital currency miners completed a split of the digital currency and worked to create more of the new, split-off coin called bitcoin cash. "A Bitcoin block was just mined that's invalid for Bitcoin Cash nodes! [That] means the chain has now forked. Bitcoin Cash is one block behind," Bitcoin Magazine said on its liveblog at 9:24 a.m., ET. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin co-founded the magazine in 2012. Bitcoin data website btcforkmonitor.info also confirmed the split.
Futures for the new "bitcoin cash," an alternative version promoted by a minority of developers, gave back all of an initial 48 percent jump to $422 to drop about 26 percent and trade near $214 as of 4:55 p.m., ET, according to CoinMarketCap. Trading in bitcoin cash was available on some exchanges, but remained a fraction of bitcoin's price. Kraken Exchange, which has about 10 percent of U.S.-dollar bitcoin trade volume, showed on its website that trades for bitcoin cash were pricing the new coin around $197. "Bitcoin Cash will have to prove itself over time and gain trust from users," Amaury Sechet, lead developer behind bitcoin cash, told CNBC. "The current price may [seem] low but this is actually an amazing level of support."