It takes a lot to startle fans of bitcoin, the digital gold of the moment. But Wednesday was, well, a lot—a wild run of exuberant peaks and white-knuckled declines that left even diehards breathless.
The dizzying rally in bitcoin, a bull market with few precedents in investing history, was abruptly interrupted by a market outage in the US that seemed to captivate Wall Street even more than the day’s selloff in high-flying technology stocks.
Only hours after soaring past $11,000—a price that represents a gain of more than two-fold since September—bitcoin plunged nearly 20% in less than 90 minutes to a low of $9,009 in New York. It hovered just below $10,000 as of 4:30pm.
