The South Korean announcement that cryptocurrency trading risks a ban continues to rattle markets. Overnight already Bitcoin had touched $10k and thus faced a 50% drop for the year.
Other cryptocurrencies were all in the red as well with total losses for yesterday mounting to $200bn according to calculations on Coindesk.
Yesterday already, many cryptocurrencies with large market caps saw their prices essentially halved at the low point of the day and today is proving to be not much better.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was once again flirting with the $10k bottom which it is expected to drop through.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Is <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> nearing the point of crash and burn? <a href="https://t.co/zVyoLLEiEQ">https://t.co/zVyoLLEiEQ</a> More from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReutersFintech?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ReutersFintech</a>: <a href="https://t.co/yaiA77ZOFp">https://t.co/yaiA77ZOFp</a> <a href="https://t.co/KHlUB6tYtn">pic.twitter.com/KHlUB6tYtn</a></p>— Reuters Tech News (@ReutersTech) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReutersTech/status/953544087512207360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Many analysts now fear that the regulatory issues in Asia and Europe, where central bankers are speaking openly about banning crypto trading, will cause panic selling this week.
At the worst moment yesterday, Bitcoin was down 17 percent, ethereum was down 13 percent and litecoin was down 14 percent. Today is not much better, meaning most of the most important crypto currencies have lost some 30% of their value in the past 4 trading days already.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Did <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> Just Burst? How It Compares to History's Big Bubbles - Bloomberg - <a href="https://t.co/ACSL91tWw0">https://t.co/ACSL91tWw0</a> <a href="https://t.co/ExEPGbwidA">pic.twitter.com/ExEPGbwidA</a></p>— Christophe Barraud🛢 (@C_Barraud) <a href="https://twitter.com/C_Barraud/status/953578203402129410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"The entire market cap of cryptocurrencies saw a sell-off post the comments on crypto from the vice governor of the PBOC," Mr Fernando Martinez, a trader for Octagon Strategy, commented.
This, according to Mr. Martinez, was added to the "additional negative sentiments from South Korea stating that tighter crypto-controls are still a possibility."
Source:
