Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are falling as anxiety scatters through the market. This time after China took more steps to crack down on the digital coins.
The world’s most seriously traded cryptocurrency fell as low as $30,202 per coin from a high of nearly $44,000 in the past 24 hours. This is according to data from Coindesk.
Bitcoin recovered slightly following the New York stock market open and was down 15% at around $37,280.
Alongside bitcoin’s fall, many other major cryptos were down Wednesday. Ethereum plunged below $2,000 per unit at its low before redeeming some of its lost ground. Ether was down almost 30% at $2,430 Wednesday morning. The dogecoin cryptocurrency lost nearly 26%.
Bitcoin and Crypto currencies : A twisty story
Crypto trading platforms Coinbase and Coindesk suffered outages as an outcome of the selloff.
Bitcoin was already falling this month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he was skeptical of its environmental impact. But a new announcement from a trio of Chinese finance and banking keepers appears to have alarmed cryptocurrency markets even more.
The media said Tuesday that financial institutions and payment firms should not participate in any marketings related to cryptocurrency, nor should they provide crypto-related services to their clients.
China’s chilly climate toward cryptocurrency goes back years. While the country doesn’t ban cryptos, regulators in 2013 announced that bitcoin was not a real currency. Moreover, they forbade financial and payment institutions from transacting with it. At the time, they cited the risk that bitcoin could be used for money laundering, as well as the need to maintain financial stability and protect the yuan’s status as a fiat currency.
Components of the public can hold or trade cryptocurrencies, but major trades in mainland China have been put on hold.
Authorities in 2017 also prohibited initial coin offerings, a way for tech startups to raise money by issuing crypto tokens to the public.
The heightening crackdown may also be in part to boost China’s initiative, which authorities are struggling to execute so it can keep money flows under its strict surveillance.
While the 2013 notice is only spoken of bitcoin by name, some spectators have taken it to apply to all cryptos, given Beijing’s distaste for the currencies. The state-owned China times on Wednesday narrated the latest announcement as a “risk warning in nature.”
While not a national law or regulation, it depicts an industry standard to some extent, the outlet wrote, citing Zhu Youping, an official from the State Information Center, a policymaking think tank.
Still, it shows that China isn’t altering tack on crypto anytime soon — and that looked like to be enough to worry dealers.
Before the latest statement from China, Tesla’s Musk had already sent crypto markets on a wild ride.
He twisted last week on a plan to enable his electric carmaker to start using bitcoin as payment for its cars by postponing the program. He cited sustainability questions around the mining of bitcoin. The cryptocurrency fell 12% afterward. It kept lowering into the start of this week after Musk appeared to imply that his automaker may have dumped its holdings of the digital currency, though he later explained that it hadn’t.
Dogecoin, meanwhile, tumbled before this month after Musk — the coin’s most prominent supporter — mocked about it on Saturday Night Live.
But the two cryptos are still astronomically higher than they occurred a year ago. Bitcoin is up 323% over the last year, according to Coinbase, while dogecoin has elevated 670%.
