Bitcoinhas split into two in an event known as a “hard fork” that has divided the virtual currency’s online community.

Two competing strands of bitcoin emerged after some of its leading backers disagreed on the best way to take it forward.

The price of the cryptocurrency has fallen slightly to around $2,700 (£2,000) after the fork. Bitcoin Cash, meanwhile, got off to a slow start as traders waited for the first transactions to be put onto the network. Its price fell shortly after it was created but has since rebounded to around $400.

What has happened?

Last week, key miners and developers of bitcoin agreed to adopt a new way of operating the cryptocurrency: since the technology is open source, changes are made to its underlying code if agreed by a consensus of users.

The new technology, called Segwit2x, has gradually been adopted by key players in recent days and appeared to avert a “civil war” over how to move forward.

However, a rival system has gained traction in recent days called Bitcoin Cash. The new system was launched on Tuesday.

Why is the technology changing?

Bitcoin, now almost a decade old, is struggling to cope with a recent surge in popularity that has seen its price jump from about £750 at the start of the year to over £2,000 now.