Bitcoins eases off record highs, loses more than 2% on Wednesday

After rising to a record high at $3370 on Tuesday, the BTC/USD pair failed to build on its gains and gave back some of its recent earnings on the back of profit taking. As of writing, the pair was trading at $3358, losing 2.4% on the day.

On Tuesday, the digital currency network decided to implement a new piece of technology called SegWit, which will improve the capacity of the bitcoin network, as reported by CNBC. With the SegWit underway, the network is looking to put the next development called 'The Lightning Network' into action. "The Lightning Network is a game-changing innovation, which utilizes smart contract technologies to enable instant micropayments using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin," Aurélien Menant, founder and CEO of digital currency exchange Gatecoin, told CNBC.

“Whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies (you know who you are), real dollars are at work here and warrant watching,” Goldman Sachs analysts Robert Boroujerdi and Jessica Binder Graham told their clients in a note.