In a terrifying moment for holders of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, their wallets were almost completely drained in a flash crash.
For a few fleeting seconds Bitcoin holders had their hearts in their mouths.
The price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency on US trading platform Binance plummeted from a near-record price of $65,815 to $8,200 in under a minute on Thursday night.
But owners of the coin were relieved when the price displayed quickly returned near the original mark and Binance apologised for an error.
“One of our institutional traders indicated to us that they had a bug in their trading algorithm, which appears to have caused the sell-off,” the company said in a statement to Markets Insider.
“We are continuing to look into the event, but understand from the trader that they have now fixed their bug and that the issue appears to have been resolved.”
The glitch caused a momentary scare among traders on social media. The account @Crypto_Chase, which has more than 55,000 followers, said: “Well done Binance US.”
Bitcoin was sitting around $63,000 USD ($84,000 AUD) on Friday morning after hitting a record high of $66,976 after a financial instrument dedicated to the unit made a successful debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
“We may be seeing a little profit-taking in bitcoin,” said market analyst Craig Erlam at currency trading platform Oanda, who added that “in the longer term it seems there’s plenty of support for the rally”.
The digital unit has surged more than 50 per cent over the past month and an eye-watering 450 per cent in one year.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao warned to “expect very high volatility in crypto over the next few months”.
