Newsflash: Bitcoin Price Spikes Near $6,900 as BitMEX Goes Offline

The bitcoin price took a major leap on Wednesday morning, spiking nearly $300 in less than a minute to break out of what had been two days of mostly sideways trading for the flagship cryptocurrency.

The incident in question occurred at exactly 1:00 UTC, when BTC leaped from $6,466 to $6,745 during a single one-minute candle on Bitfinex, and the bitcoin price continued to increase from there, rising above the $6,800 mark and peaking at $6,899 before settling back down to a present value of $6,840 at 1:34 UTC.

Early indications suggest that the price action, which came during a period of relatively-low trading volume in the cryptocurrency markets, may not be quite organic. That’s because it occurred at nearly the exact moment that BitMEX, a leveraged cryptocurrency trading platform that handles billions of dollars worth of contracts daily, went offline for scheduled maintenance.

As of the time of writing, BitMEX was beginning to resume services, though it had not yet re-enabled trading. Consequently, it remains to be seen whether the market will sustain these gains throughout the early morning hours.