Following a regulatory crackdown and recent hacks, bitcoin prices have slumped to lows not seen for months. The popular cryptocurrency dipped just below $5,800 as of 8:30 a.m. on Friday (June 29), CNBC reported.
Bitcoin hasn’t reached that level since the middle of last November. Overall, the cryptocurrency has plummeted about 60 percent this year, so far, after an atmospheric rise of over 1,100 percent in 2017. The fall comes as financial regulators in Japan mandated stricter anti-money laundering (AML) practices for multiple crypto exchanges. And two crypto exchanges in South Korea, Coinrail and Bithumb, have experienced large hacks in the past two weeks.
With the fall, authorities like Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian said bitcoin is getting to the price point where it might be worth buying — $5,000, he says. He told CNBC, “I don’t think you get all the way back to $20,000, but I do think that you need to establish a base whereby the people who really believe in the future of bitcoin consolidate, and then that provides you a lift.”
The news comes after cryptocurrencies fell fast in just a few hours, due to a flash crash that wiped out $15 billion earlier in June. According to News BTC, the crypto markets fell more than 6 percent over a day, with bitcoin kicking it off by shedding $300 in just over an hour and 4.5 percent on the day. As BTC points out, since all cryptos are tied together, if a big one falls, they all do — and often harder.
What caused that flash crash? One potential cause might have been the fact that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission had subpoenaed several large exchanges — including Coinbase, Kraken and Bitstamp — as it investigates alleged price manipulation. Another factor could have been that Korean crypto exchange Coinrail lost more than $40 million in altcoins after it was hit by an attack.
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