Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices were lower on Thursday, as news of a delay in a planned hard fork in Ethereum due to security concerns spooked investors.
The hard fork, which is when the code of a digital coin is changed, was expected to help solve the coin's scalability, but was delayed after a Swiss-based audit consultancy, ChainSecurity, identified potential vulnerabilities arising from the plan.
Ethereum slipped 4% to $119.81 as of 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT) on the Investing.com Index.
Cryptocurrencies overall were flat with the total coin market capitalization at $122 billion at the time of writing.
Bitcoin slipped 1.3% to $3,579.40 and Litecoin was at $30.431, down 3.5%, while XRP decreased 1.96% to $0.3233.
ChainSecurity found a loophole in Ethereum’s updated Constantinople code which would have allowed attackers to steal user funds, the company said.
Digital security is one the biggest challenges for cryptocurrencies and exchanges, with numerous attacks in the last few years resulting in the loss of millions of dollars' worth of digital currency.
The upgrade would have been Ethereum's eighth hard fork and would have helped speed up processing times and data storage, and reduce mining rewards from three to two.
It’s also the second time this specific upgrade has been delayed. A decision on when the upgrade will go live is expected during a developer call on Friday.
In other news, Belarus is launching a platform to allow traders to buy shares, gold and other traditional assets with cryptocurrencies. The tokens would track the value of the real assets and users can invest in them by buying the tokens.
The Belarusian government will not levy taxes on such transactions until 2023 in an attempt to encourage users.