The cryptocurrency sell-off accelerated overnight, leading to sharp declines in the bitcoin (BTC) price and almost all of the world's altcoins. Here's your morning update:
At the time of writing the BTC price is down 8.5% over the last 24 hours to US$10,362 per coin according to Coin Market Cap. This has reduced the world's largest cryptocurrency's market capitalisation to approximately US$174.5 billion. At one stage bitcoin fell below the US$10,000 mark before recovering slightly.
The Ethereum (ETH) price has fallen 6.5% since this time yesterday to US$1,106. Ethereum now has a market capitalisation of US$107.7 billion, which puts its value on a par with Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA).
The world's third-largest crypto, Ripple (XRP), has been one of the worst performers in the industry over the last 24 hours. It has lost 10.5% of its value during this time, reducing its price to US$1.20 and its market capitalisation to US$46.5 billion.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has fallen almost 8% since this time yesterday to US$1,539. This reduces the bitcoin spin-off's market capitalisation to just over US$26 billion.
The Cardano (ADA) price has been another of the worst performers, dropping 10% over the last 24 hours to 56.2 U.S. cents. The increasingly popular cryptocurrency has seen its market capitalisation fall to US$14.6 billion.
Elsewhere, there were heavy declines for NEO (NEO), Litecoin (LTC), and Stellar Lumens (XLM). The latter falling over 13% since this time yesterday to 50.9 U.S. cents.
What happened?
These declines are likely to be a reaction to the new regulations that came into force in South Korea yesterday that saw anonymous trading outlawed.
In addition to this, UK prime minister Theresa May has hinted that her government may also follow suit and ban anonymous trading. And finally, over in the United States Bloomberg is reporting that U.S. regulators subpoenaed crypto exchange Bitfinex and crypto coin Tether last month.
All in all, this appears to have traders concerned that the industry is going to be overhauled by regulators in the coming months. I suspect they may be right.
