The price of ether fell to as low as 10 cents on one exchange, and the wider cryptocurrency community still in shock.
Markets for ether, the cryptocurrency linked to the ethereum distributed computing platform, were rocked yesterday by a huge flash crash that saw prices fall from over $365 down to as low as 10 cents on one exchange before bouncing back shortly afterwards—an event that is mildly worrying for anyone concerned about cryptocurrency volatility, but has had devastating consequences for some professional traders who have seen their holdings wiped out.The crash occurred at about 3:30pm ET Thursday, when a huge sale of ether was made on the GDAX exchange, an extension of the popular Coinbase exchange and cryptocurrency wallet geared towards professional traders. According to GDAX's official statement a single and as yet unknown actor sold millions of dollars worth of ether across a range of positions from $317 down to $224, meaning that ether was effectively trading at the lower end of this range. The consequence of this initial drop in trading value was to trigger a number of stop loss orders—mechanisms by which a trader's holdings will automatically be sold when the price dips below a certain marker. In turn, these new sales drove the price lower, triggering additional stop loss order in a cascading effect. At its lowest point, ether was trading for $0.10 per unit.
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