Bitcoin fell by more than 4 per cent in late-morning Wednesday trading, having reached a 16-month high only hours beforehand.

The world’s leading cryptocurrency has gone from strength to strength throughout October, helped in large part by shifting institutional opinion.

Less than 10 days ago traders, analysts and journalists were debating as to whether Bitcoin could break and sustain itself above $12,000.

This threshold was comfortably beaten after PayPal announced its intention to offer crypto buy and sell features to its users.

That Bitcoin held above $12,700 for the past week further emboldened those of more bullish sentiment and, having broken but rejected the $13,000 benchmark on four occasions, the crypto has surged since Monday.

Early morning on Wednesday, Bitcoin reached $13,847. This was a new high for 2020 and more than 88 per cent above its 2020 starting level.

Amid the frenzied trading, Coinbase, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, disabled trading. This was supposedly due to feed issues experiences as Bitcoin challenged 2019 highs.

The company stated it is “currently investigating the issue” but has not provided any further detail.

By mid-afternoon, Bitcoin stood at $13,222. This was 4.5 per cent below the high reached only hours before.

Despite this perhaps expected correction, the cryptocurrency still stands up by 21 per cent in the past month.

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