Flash Crash: Ethereum Price Flattens Before Resurfacing Near $300
Ether, the digital token of Ethereum, a cryptocurrency that is up over 3500% in 2017, plummeted to a low of $13 on Wednesday evening on GDAX, losing some 25x in value before making up those losses
According to data from cryptocurrency exchange GDAX, ether prices sunk to a low of $13 today at approximately 20:30 UTC. In the minutes leading up to the fall, ether was trading at $317.
The impact of the crash saw GAX operator Coinbase disable margin trading on the ETH-USD order book before completely disabling Ethereum trading.
Updates on GDAX’s status page read:
Investigating – We’re currently investigating sign-in issues on GDAX.com, as well as the cause of rapid price movement on the ETH-USD order book. We have disabled further margin funding for the time being.
Jun 21, 12:53 PDT
Update – Trading is disabled for ETH-USD while we investigate this issue. We are also investigating reports of sign-in issues on GDAX.com.
The fall comes at a time when the Ethereum network – the world’s second-largest public blockchain after bitcoin – is seeing an unprecedented rise inactivity. On June 20, the network reached 300,000 transactions, according to data from Etherscan.
Some Ethereum adopters have pointed the finger squarely at ICO token sales, a radical new crowdfunding model powered by cryptocurrencies that have proven to be enormously successful in recent months.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
