It’s tough out there for cryptocurrency investors. This morning, the price of bitcoin dropped in the double-digit percents–hitting a monthlong low of $11,191.59. Currently the price has risen a bit, to around $12,000, but that’s still a huge drop from yesterday’s $14,094.86.
According to Reuters:
LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid as much as 18 percent on Tuesday to a four-week low, as fears of a regulatory crackdown on the market spread after reports suggested it was still possible that South Korea could ban trading in cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin’s slide triggered a selloff across the broader cryptocurrency market, with biggest rival Ethereum down 23 percent on the day at one point, according to trade website Coinmarketcap, and the next-biggest, Ripple, plunging by as much as a third.
Bitcoin traded as low as $11,191.59 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. By 1400 GMT it has edged up to $11,650, but that was still down more than 14 percent, leaving it on track for its biggest one-day fall since September.
Jamie Burke, chief executive of Outlier Ventures, a venture capital firm that is one of the biggest holders of top-10 cryptocurrency IOTA, said the belief the market was overdue a correction was making traders jittery and that was exacerbating the scale of the moves.
On the heels of this news and plunge, other cryptocurrencies followed suit. Ethereum’s price fell over 13% and litecoin fell over 14%.
Does this mean a selloff is happening and the bubble is finally bursting? Not everyone thinks so.
A director at Germany’s central bank said on Monday that any attempt to regulate cryptocurrencies must be on a global scale as national or regional rules would be hard to enforce on a virtual, borderless community.
The latest plunge in the market came as wealth management firm deVere Group, which has $12 billion under advisement, said it was launching a cryptocurrency app that would allow users to store, transfer and exchange five of the biggest digital coins, citing “soaring global demand”.