Bitcoin Hits A Bump

Technical glitches, competition, and Wall Street skepticism have walloped the value of bitcoins lately, a rare setback in the digital currency’s otherwise relentless run higher.

The question now is whether the selloff will ultimately prove to be a temporary bout of growing pains or a more significant turning point in bitcoin’s evolution.

Bitcoin prices have approximately tripled this year, touching a monthly closing high above $3,000 on June 11. But they’ve since fallen near $2,600, down more than 13 percent from the high, according to the cryptocurrency site CoinDesk.

Bitcoin’s woes started last week with a massive headache for traders as the popular bitcoin exchange Coinbase experienced an outage due to heavy volume. The incident highlighted how popular cryptocurrencies have become, with the global market now topping $100 billion. But it also renewed concerns about whether the ecosystem around bitcoin and its peers is mature and stable enough to truly challenge more traditional means of exchange issued by governments.

Coincidentally, the grandaddy of government-issued “fiat” currencies, the U.S. dollar, got a shot in the arm Wednesday when the Federal Reserve’s policy committee raised its key interest-rate target by a quarter percentage-point, to a range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent.

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Photo credit: news.bitcoin.com

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