Bitcoin price LIVE: BTC falls to $6,800 with 'bounce' predicted to kick in at $4k low

7.30am MORNING HEADLINES

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of all things cryptocurrency, including price, regulation, innovation and financial crime.

Bitcoin has fallen overnight to $6,809 as losses from the week's high of $7,489 hit $688.

Jani Ziedins of Cracked Market has written on bitcoin's struggle and described the recent recovery as "pathetic".

Mr Ziedins said: "Bitcoin continues to struggle. Even though prices bounced on Tuesday, a few hundred dollar rebound from recent lows is a pathetic bounce for BTC. We are still most definitely in a strong down trend and there is no reason to think the worst is behind us.

"The thing to keep in mind is prices bounce decisively from grossly oversold levels. It is hard to claim last week’s dip to $6,500 was anything like the shocking free falls over the last few months.

"And the same can be said of today’s few hundred dollar rebound. If we haven’t reached shockingly oversold levels yet, then we are not done falling yet.

"Expect prices to undercut Feburary’s lows over the next few weeks and that violation to trigger a large wave of defensive selling.

"Don’t expect prices to bounce until we fall into the $4k range. Then and only then will it be safe to buy the bounce.

Updates below throughout the day....

8.24am - UPDATE - Mark Karpeles says, 'I don't want this'

The former chief executive of Mt Gox, once bitcoin's largest exchange, has apologised for his role in the company's 2014 collapse that shook the crypto community.

In a Reddit post on Wednesday, Mark Karpeles reached out to the exchange's users, many of whom have been locked in a years-long battle to retrieve funds lost by the exchange.

He said: "I don't want this. I don't want this billion dollars. From day one I never expected to receive anything from this bankruptcy.

"The fact that today this is a possibility is an aberration and I believe it is my responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen."