The
world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, bitcoin, has lost over half
its value since it smashed the $20,000 barrier in mid-December. The
price of the cryptocurrency dropped to $9,555 at 15:00 GMT on
Wednesday.
“The
cryptocurrency market is experiencing a serious attack from
speculators,” Gleb Zadoya, head of analytics at Analitika
Online said in email comments to RT.
“The
reason for the sell-off are reports on the strengthening of
regulation by the Chinese and South Korean authorities. After that,
the exchange rate of many cryptocurrencies fell below important
psychological levels.”
On
Tuesday, an official from the People's Bank of China said the
country's centralized virtual currency trade needs to end, Reuters
reported.
National
and local authorities should ban venues that provide centralized
trading of virtual currencies, including the largest one, bitcoin,
PBOC Vice Governor Pan Gongsheng was quoted as saying.
“The
financial work conference clearly called for limiting ‘innovations’
that deviate from the need of the real economy and escape
regulation,” Pan said, according to a memo quoted by Reuters.
There
have been reports that an increasing number of people were taking out
mortgages to invest in bitcoin when it peaked at $20,000.
The
collective market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has dropped
by more than $200 billion since Tuesday.
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