Bitcoin is trading down 5.78%, at $2,715, after word that bitcoin cash has gone live.
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Bitcoin is sinking as bitcoin cash goes live
Bitcoin is likely to be split in two.
Photographers in front of a mock bitcoin ATM during the opening of Hong Kong's first bitcoin retail store in February 2014.
A civil war had been brewing between the so-called core developers, who want to limit the size of the blocks that make up bitcoin's network to protect it from hacks, and miners, who want to make the blocks bigger to improve its speed.
Two years of disagreement came to a head on Tuesday, as the deadline passed for a decision about the technology that powers the cryptocurrency. That led to a fork, which the bitcoin exchange Coinbase describes as a "change to the software of the digital currency that creates two separate versions of the blockchain with a shared history."
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What emerged was a bitcoin rival called bitcoin cash, bucking a proposed solution called SegWit2x.
"Bitcoin cash basically came out of nowhere," Charlie Morris, the chief investment officer of NextBlock Global, an investment firm with digital assets, previously told Business Insider. "A group of miners who didn't like SegWit2x are going to opt for this new software that will increase the size of blocks from the current 1 megabyte to 8."
Bitcoin holders will see their holdings double, but that doesn't mean the value will double. The decline in bitcoin will most likely be equal to the price of bitcoin cash, according to Morris.
Bitcoin is up 190% so far this year.
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