Bitcoin calm shattered as price dives below $6,000 to lowest level in over a year

(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin tumbled below $6,000 for the first time since August and reached the lowest level in over a year, breaking the recent stretch of tranquility exhibited by the notoriously volatile digital alternative to cash.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency tumbled as much as 11 percent, with most of the loss coming within a half hour window. Other digital coins slumped, with smaller rivals Ether, Litecoin and XRP dropping more than 17 percent. Bitcoin Cash tumbled as much as 21 percent as the bitcoin offshoot faces its own split.

When it split off a year ago, Bitcoin Cash jump-started the forking craze in which dozens of software-development teams sought to create money out of thin air by tweaking the original computer code and releasing coins with “bitcoin” in their names.

A group headed by Craig Wright is expected to take control tomorrow of the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency following a software upgrade. A rival faction that disagrees on how to best expand has been trying to persuade the community of computer operators running the network to adopt their version. About 70 percent of the so-called miners that process the transactions that keep the network afloat are signaling they support the version backed by Wright’s allies, according to crypto data tracker Coin Dance.