The largest exchange for the digital currency Bitcoin halted trading Thursday, saying it needed to let the market "cool down" after a massive drop in value. 
 
 Mt.Gox, a Tokyo-based exchange, blamed a surge in new accounts following a spike in the digital currency's value for the temporary suspension. The exchange said in a statement that it had been a "victim of our own success". 
 
 The value of a Bitcoin plummeted more than $160 yesterday after hitting a new high of $266. It continued to fall on other exchanges Thursday, trading below $100 in many. Two months ago the digital currency was valued at $20. 
 
 Mt.Gox claims to facilitate 80% of all Bitcoin trades made in dollars and more than 70% of all other currencies. It blamed the "astonishing" number of new accounts opened in the last few days for overwhelming the exchange. 
 
 It said in a statement: 
 
 As expected in such situation people started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin in mass (Panic Sale) resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze the trade engine! To give you an idea of how impressive things were here are some numbers that we would love to share with you guys: – The number of trades executed tripled in the last 24hrs. – The number of new account opened went from 60k for March alone to 75k new account created for the first few days of April! We now have roughly 20,000 new accounts created each day. 
 
 Bitcoin was created four years ago by a person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The virtual currency is a favorite of libertarians critical of central banks as well as those involved in illegal gambling and drug trades. 
 
 The value of the currency has risen sharply as the Eurozone crisis has escalated, something Bitcoin representatives have dismissed as coincidence. In an interview with Der Spiegel this week Jon Matonis of the Bitcoin Foundation, the currency's promoter, denied a euro-bubble was being created. "Most transactions are still coming from affluent regions, like the United States and northern Europe. What we are seeing is not a Cyprus bubble," he said. ||||| We won't be bringing you any updates on the price of Bitcoin for the next 10 hours or so. 
 
 That's because Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, has halted trading in the virtual currency until 10 PM ET "to allow the market to cooldown following the drop in price" that happened yesterday. 
 
 Below is a screenshot of the trading log-in page on the Mt. Gox website: 
 
 Mt. Gox said in a Facebook post overnight that a serious lag in the Bitcoin trading platform – due to a rapid influx of new users in recent days – caused a panic that resulted in yesterday's big sell-off. 
 
 Lags like that can also be caused by "distributed denial of service" attacks, wherein hackers use large groups of computers to flood a website with connections, such that no one else can connect to it. 
 
 Last week, Mt. Gox said it had been subjected to a "a DDoS attack like we have never seen." 
 
 This morning, in a note to clients, ConvergEx Group Chief Market Strategist Nick Colas – one of the only Wall Street analysts who has paid any attention to Bitcoin – wrote that ongoing DDoS attacks on Bitcoin exchanges and services were hackers trying to send the virtual currency plunging in order to scoop it up for lower prices. 
 
 Whatever the cause of yesterday's sell-off – whether it was hackers trying to manipulate the market down or just a massive influx of new users – exchanges like Mt. Gox will have to figure out ways to mitigate the conditions that lead to massive price swings like that in order to attract a wider user base. 
 
 Get the latest Bitcoin price here.>>
– Bitcoin fans have to cool their heels until 10pm Eastern. The biggest exchange of the digital currency has halted trading after a steep drop in value yesterday, reports the Guardian. Tokyo exchange Mt. Gox blamed the drop—from $266 to about $100—on an "astonishing" number of new accounts that led to lags in trading. "As expected in such situations people started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin ... resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze the trade engine," it said in a statement. Maybe, writes Matthew Boesler at Business Insider, but those kinds of lags in trading also could be explained by a hackers trying to manipulate the market. Whatever the cause turns out to be, "exchanges like Mt. Gox will have to figure out ways to mitigate the conditions that lead to massive price swings like that in order to attract a wider user base." If you need a refresher on the typical Bitcoin buyer, at least in the currency's early days, the Guardian explains: It's "a favorite of libertarians critical of central banks as well as those involved in illegal gambling and drug trades."