LakeBTC Suspended from CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index

UPDATE (2nd January, 2015 17:19pm GMT): LakeBTC's suspension has been extended for a further 30 days, ending on 30th January, 2015.

UPDATE (2nd December 11:47am GMT): LakeBTC's suspension has been extended for a further 30 days, ending on 30th December.

Data from bitcoin exchange LakeBTC will be suspended from inclusion in CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index from 3:00pm GMT today. This is an hour earlier than the original time of 4:00pm GMT.

The move is a result of faulty price ticker data sent by the exchange this morning, 31st October, which supplied bid and ask values of $0 at 07:18 and 08:01 (GMT).

This is the third instance of faulty price data from LakeBTC this week. Two earlier instances of faulty data caused the price to spike for several hours on 26th October and for seven minutes the following day.

LakeBTC claimed that it had fixed the data errors on 29th October.

Data under review

The exchange said today's $0 bid and ask values were the result of an attempt to fix its earlier data fault. Its price ticker reports a null value when the bid-ask spread is "out of range", according to LakeBTC.

In this case, a negative spread was created when the bid value was greater than the ask value temporarily because of an order placed on the exchange, the exchange has added. The negative spread caused the ticker to report null values in those instances, LakeBTC said.

In light of the repeated price reporting errors from LakeBTC, the exchange will be suspended from inclusion in the CoinDesk BPI for 30 days.

CoinDesk will continue to collect LakeBTC price data and review it for errors over the 30-day suspension period, and will also begin a process of reviewing solutions to prevent similar problems from arising in future.

Data image via Shutterstock