Bitcoin, Ripple And Other Cryptocurrency Sell-Off Spreads To Stocks.
Investors have nowhere to hide this week. A sell-off that began in Bitcoin, Ripple, Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies earlier in the week eventually spread to stocks by the end of the week — see tables.
Table 1
Seven-Day Price Change For Major Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrency %7d
Bitcoin -22.56
Ethereum -15.13
Ripple -30.91
Litecoin -27.93
Source: Coinmarketcap.com 2/12/18 at 4:30 p.m.
Table 2
ETF %1d
SPDR S&P 500 2.15
SPDR DJ -2.56
PowerShares QQQ -1.99
Apparently, investors have been getting nervous about every asset class, though for different reasons for each.
Cryptocurrency investors have been getting nervous over the future of digital money, as big governments and big banks from China to South Korea and the U.S. are trying to set the rules of the game on their own terms.
Then there’s the issue of an ever-growing supply of digital currencies, which has approached the 1400-mark, causing both market “dilution” and confusion.
And there’s the issue of trust. Most of these digital currencies have no fundamentals behind them, other than a web page that promises to make capitalism efficient; and there’s the potential of fraud that further undermines that trust.