Bitcoin Flash Crash: Real-Time Report of What’s Happening

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Over the past week, Bitcoin has seen a renewed meteoric rise, breaking $200 for the second time in the history of the currency.

Then tonight, BAM, a flash crash. The price of Bitcoin dropped from $230 to $180 in what seemed like a moment. This graph tells the story (click to enlarge)

What’s happening to Bitcoin?

The hacker activist group Anonymous tweeted tonight that there may be a move to crash Bitcoin.

#Bitcoin rising fast at $230 could be another attempt to crash the #Bitcoin market very soon please Be alert. #Anonymous #Wikileaks

— Anonymous_B.I.G. (@AnonBig) October 24, 2013

This is following a great amount of trading activity and endorsement of Bitcoin in China this past week that drove the price above $200. So who wants to crash the currency?

Investors in real-time are speculating that there was a large block trade (sell) that dropped the value of Bitcoin on the primary exchanges. The key question is whether the price will rebound or keep falling.

How are investors reacting?

It all depends on who wins and who loses, naturally.

Bitcointalk forum user eclipse81 wrote:

The 20 minutes between 1:10 and 1:35 EST just saw my BTC holding devalue by about 20% and then increase by 14%.Exececuted sell order at about 225 and bought it all back at 190 in 20 minutes..damn.However the quick recovery after that mini flash crash should be an indicator that FUD is not as prevalent as it was in April.that was intense.

FUD stands for “fear, uncertainty and doubt” which is a risk in a currency that has only existed for a few years.

Bitcoin trader Sir Bits-A-Lot wrote on Twitter:

Relax guys. It’s only been 25% #bitcoin move on gox and 20% on bitstamp. Barely even noticed the 4 inch red candle on my 27 inch monitor.

— Sir Bits-A-Lot (@SirBitsALot) October 24, 2013

And then there is Bitcointalk forum user TERA who simply wrote:

Just increased my btc 10% (trading).

Go get ‘em TERA.

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