Bitcoin begins to recover one week after crash

Last Friday’s spectacular 30 percent plunge in the value of the hitherto booming Bitcoin cyber-currency, which saw it retreat from almost $20,000 to just over $10,400 (see previous report) has been ameliorated by a rebound to just over $16,000 on the Coinbase exchange on Wednesday 27 December.

Rival currencies litecoin and ethereum were up 4.4 percent and 2.6.

Coinbase claims that the recovery has been over 50 percent since Friday’s low of $10,400. Since the beginning of this year Bitcoin has risen 1,500 percent, creating an apparently self-sustaining but volatile boom in the virtual currency despite warnings from experts that it may be a bubble set to burst.

There has still been no immediate explanation behind the extreme volatility in price shifts, much of which has come with the introduction of Bitcoin futures trading earlier this month.

Observers are now awaiting the potential fall-out likely to occur from a second “fork” in Bitcoin labelled the SegWit2x Bitcoin (BTC) hard fork, which is scheduled to go ahead as planned on Thursday December 28 (at block 501451), following an initial delay.

News that proponents of a controversial “hard fork” had suspended their plans back on November 8 sent the price of Bitcoin skyrocketing.

The project’s Founder and Lead Developer, Jaap Terlouw, says that the fork aims to address issues of “commission and transaction speed within the Bitcoin network,” adding that currently, Bitcoin is “almost impossible to use as a means of payment.”

Eight exchanges are listed as official supporters of the fork.

Bitcoin Cash, which came out of the first hard fork back in August, has seen substantial growth.