Bitcoin crashes, losing nearly half of its value in six hours

Plunge happens on the same day one anonymous redditor made it rain in Bitcoin.

 

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On Wednesday afternoon, the Bitcoin bubble appears to have burst. As of this writing, its current value is around $160—down from a high of $260. (It fell as low as $130 today.) There is no obvious explanation for why the digital currency has fallen so far and so fast, although the market correcting after such a huge rise might be a good explanation. (Update 4:05pm CT: Bitcoin seems to have somewhat recovered and appears to be hovering around $200. Update 6:00pm CT: The exchange rate has fallen back to around $160.)

Some redditors have taken solace in a comment thread entitled "Hold Spartans."

"This is just the market venting some pressure after these huge gains," wrote anotherblog. "To be honest I'm glad it's happening now. If it recovers, it will demonstrate resilience in the market and give confidence to future buyers and current holders that they don't need to panic sell, reduce the chances of a crash in the future."

Coincidentally, the plunge came several hours after a reddit user by the name of “Bitcoinbillionaire” suddenly, spontaneously decided to give away around $12,000 (more than 63 BTC) worth of the digital currency. Bitcoinbillionaire rewarded 13 seemingly random redditors, then stopped the whirlwind spree after about eight hours. At the moment, no evidence links the currency's plunge with this random reddit charity.

Bitcoinbillionaire took advantage of reddit’s Bitcointip mechanism, which allows users to send each other small amounts of cash (usually less than $5). The mysterious benefactor appears to have given away 20 BTC (now worth slightly less than $4,000) as his or her first gift to one Karelb. This gift happened under a comment titled: “I wish for the price to crash.” That comment now seems prophetic.

A look at the account transferring all this money shows that two hours before the giveaways began, Bitcoinbillionaire received 50 BTC (about $9,500) from another account without an IP address.

Business Insider reported that Bitcoinbillionaire has left hints that he or she was an "early adopter," and had forgotten he or she even had any bitcoins. Not much is known beyond that, as Bitcoinbillionaire vanished as suddenly as he or she appeared.

"You've made me change my mind about this whole thing," Bitcoinbillionaire wrote. "I'm done."

Don’t feel bad if you missed the action. Business Insider also notes that this pot of cash is now being “paid forward.”