$60b wipes off value of crypto currency market in 24 hours

Investors in the crypto currencies may be going through difficult times, as over $60billion is being wiped off the value of crypto currencies, while bitcoin fell below $8,000 again for the third time in four days.

Reports gathered from, Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), showed that the fall is amid a broader sell-off in cryptocurrencies that has seen over $60 billion of value erased from the market in 24 hours.

Corroborating bitcoin and digital currencies news site, CoinDesk, the price of bitcoin traded as low as $7,598.20 on Monday, and sat below the $8,000 mark for most of the trade in the morning, which is the lowest price for bitcoin since November 18.

On Friday, bitcoin fell below $8,000 for the first time since November 24, then rose above $9,000 over the weekend before falling below $8,000 on Sunday.
The report stated further that other major virtual currencies, including ethereum and ripple, fell sharply in the last 24 hours as the market capitalisation or value of the entire cryptocurrencies market fell to $365.27billion at around 11:30 a.m. London time (6:30 a.m. ET) on Monday, a drop of around $67.7 billion in 24 hours.

From the report, it was speculated that tougher regulation has been a key factor weighing on price as India Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, recently stated that the country wanted to eliminate the use of digital currencies in criminal activities, signaling tighter regulation in the country.

Also, a publication closely affiliated with the People’s Bank of China, reported that the central bank will block all platforms related to crypto currency trading and the issuance of so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) as it had previously stamped out domestic cryptocurrency.

More so, major banks had begun to curb the use of their services to buy cryptocurrencies. Recently, major United Kingdom lender, Lloyds Banking Group, said it was stopping people buying cryptocurrencies using credit cards. The move followed United States banks J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup, who implemented the same policy last week.

Other worries plaguing the digital currency market, is particularly around a cryptocurrency called tether as experts have suggested that tether, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar was created to prop up the bitcoin price.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had stressed that virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, and similar products are not legal tenders in Nigeria, thus any bank or institution that transacts in such business does so at its own risk.