PixabayThe price of Bitcoin plummeted again after investors were worried by the news of South Korean authorities banning cryptocurrency trading.
Bitcoin fell almost eight per cent – at $14,191 US (£10,552) – during Thursday morning trading, having recovered slightly from an earlier low of 13,672 US dollars (£10,168), according to prices listed on CoinDesk.
It comes after authorities in South Korea have ‘put forward new legislation that would ban anonymous cryptocurrency accounts’, writes Huffington Post.
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This apparent legislation is also set to ‘stop banks from settling bitcoin exchange trades between parties that are unidentified, and give regulators the power to shut down cryptocurrency exchanges if necessary’.
Earlier in December, South Korea was said to be considering a capital gains tax on cryptocurrency trading, and banned the use of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) which allow investors to exchange cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for proprietary ‘coins’ linked to firms or projects. The latest price drop follows losses last week, when Bitcoin fell ’36 per cent from nearly $20,000 US to around $12,137 US in five days’.
PixabayWe’ve been seeing a steady decline in the cryptocurrency since the peak on Sunday, December 17th, including a massive drop to $17,000 on Tuesday, December 19th.
On December 22nd, almost all cryptocurrency saw a dip – Ethereum (down 20 per cent), Bitcoin Cash (down 30 per cent), Litecoin (down 21 per cent) and ‘nearly every high-profile altcoin lost value over the last 24 hours’, according to Coinmarketcap.com.
Ripple was up seven per cent, and was reportedly just one of two coins to remain green.
It’s a tumultuous world in the crypto-sphere, such a drop was expected to be followed by gains after everybody’s Christmas money came in and they started investing – but this is yet to happen.
PixabayIt seems like a few experts have been prescient in their ditching of the cryptocurrency, including Emil Oldenburg.
Oldenburg, who co-founded Bitcoin.com, dumped his coins just last week saying they were as ‘good as useless’.
Speaking to Swedish tech site Breakit, the tech expert said bitcoin is the ‘most risky investment you can make’ and this drop only seems to support that statement.
He said:
It’s an extremely high risk. I’ve actually sold all my bitcoins recently and switched to bitcoin cash.
It costs a lot to transfer bitcoins to and from the stock exchanges. When I sold my BTC I had to pay $50 and wait 12 hours for the transaction to go through because of this.
He revealed Bitcoin.com had ‘stopped developing new services for the old bitcoin network’ and now primarily focuses mostly on bitcoin cash, which was launched in August.
The old bitcoin network is virtually unusable. It’s at bitcoin cash that the solutions are, that’s where I see a future.
Despite its recent dips – and even freezes – the cryptocurrency everybody is talking about is still up on the year, having started at around $900 US back in January.
It’s certainly interesting, but I won’t be investing…I’m out.
