Bitcoin News: Prices of Cryptocurrencies Dive as Market Loses $34 Billion in Total Value
Prices of Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrencies worldwide has dipped and plummeted in the wake of China declaring initial coin offerings illegal. Bitcoin has lost nearly $1,000 in value, dropping to $4,037.50 after an all-time high of $5,013 just this Friday, Sep. 1, as the rest of the cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and LiteCoin follow suit.
What started as an initial market correction over the weekend has turned into a steep slide for cryptocurrency prices; Bitcoin among them. As China's regulators impose a measure banning the selling of new cryptocurrencies, better known as initial coin offerings, Bitcoin prices went into a steep decline that saw it lose 20 percent of its value, as reported by CoinDesk.
It's not just Bitcoin, too, as the total value of all cryptocurrencies on public offer today dropped from $179 billion to $145 billion as of this time. This dip amounts to a loss of $34 billion, or nearly 19 percent, wiped off the market.
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For now, just one exchange is selling Bitcoin for less than $4,000: the OKCoin exchange in China. With the decline dropping to $4,037.50, however, analysts are expecting inertia from the downward trend to carry Bitcoin value even lower, possibly down to $3,769.
Charles Hayter, founder of CryptoCompare, compared Bitcoin's roller coaster ride to the normal trading scene. "Markets moving up so quickly with such uncertainty are naturally going to be subject to huge bouts of volatility," he said, adding that as stock markets watch for half-percent fluctuations, crypto traders are more accustomed to swings of 5 percent or more.
More worrying is the present trend for Ethereum, which went down by more than 20 percent within 24 hours, according to Bloomberg. Ethereum is the currency that's been commonly used to kickstart and support initial coin offerings. The results are telling as value across the board is down, with IOTA and NEO losing more than 30 percent in just a day.
Perhaps it's about time to get back to building business models and making actual products, as Bitcoin and its kind now trend downwards in their search for their new stable price points.
