Investing.com – Bitcoin fell on Thursday as traders expressed disappointment at the cancellation of a controversial upgrade to the popular digital currency's underlying software which would have potentially led to the creation of a new cryptocurrency.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, bitcoin fell to $7169.2, up $277.8, or 3.70% well below its recent high of $7895. Bitcoin's market cap fell to 119.96 billion.
Developers behind the SegWit2x upgrade announced Wednesday that they were suspending plans for the upgrade, which was slated to activate around November 16.
"Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin's growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x," a group of developers said in a note on Wednesday.
The announcement to shelve the upgrade, however, drew disappointment from investors who had expected that that the SegWit2x upgrade would have led to the creation of a new cryptocurrency that would have distributed to current holders of bitcoin.
Other cryptocurrencies benefited from the flows out of bitcoin, as bitcoin cash rose 1.56% to $631.59 while bitcoin gold added 4.45% to $5.83.
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rose 6.13% to $326.31.