Bitcoin Cash deals frozen as insider trading probed

One of the US's leading crypto-currency exchanges is carrying out an insider trading investigation.

Coinbase fears its own workers may have exploited its move into Bitcoin Cash - a spin-off of the original Bitcoin, BBC News reports.

The San Francisco-based firm announced the move after Bitcoin Cash's price jumped.

Coinbase began letting its users buy, sell, send and receive Bitcoin Cash on Tuesday in a surprise decision but has temporarily suspended trade.

The company's chief executive intervened after several market watchers posted allegations of illegal activity on social media sites.

Brian Armstrong responded that he had repeatedly warned his staff not to disclose its launch plans to family or friends or to trade in the digital asset themselves.

"It appears the price of Bitcoin Cash on other exchanges increased in the hours before our announcement," he wrote on the blogging platform Medium.

"If we find evidence of any employee or contractor violating our policies  -  directly or indirectly  - I will not hesitate to terminate the employee immediately and take appropriate legal action."

Bitcoin Cash - which is no more tangible than Bitcoin itself - came into being in August after several developers became frustrated at lengthening transaction times for the original crypto-currency.

Bitcoin Cash addressed this problem by tweaking the underlying technology - the blockchain - to allow bigger chunks of data to be processed at a time.