World’s most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin crashed more than 15% on Monday to slump to almost three month low. This is probably the first time that bitcoin’s value declined in double-digit ever since its slide began from the beginning of this New Year. Monday’s crash also comes amid global clampdown on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as concerns continue to swell over legality of digital currencies.
Bitcoin’s price dived as low as $6,853.53 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in early afternoon trading on Monday. The big price erosion comes immediately a day after British’s leading bank Lloyds Banking Group announced that it will prohibit customers from using credit cards to buy bitcoin. Following this announcement, Lloyds joins long list of high profile banks that have announced similar bans on bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s continuous slide since January marks a big turnaround from its unprecedented high of $20,000 level that was achieved during December last year. In fact, all throughout the last year Bitcoin witnessed an astounding rise of almost 1,300% in its price. The insane rise in valuation took the entire world by storm, with Bitcoin literally becoming talk of the town.
Meanwhile, other popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Ripple suffered the same misfortune as bitcoin during Monday’s trading. Ethereum’s value eroded by almost 19% to finish at $703.40, while ripple lost 14.1% to end the day at 71 cents.
Cryptocurrencies’ price hammering since beginning of the New Year is something that has come least surprising, with most experts during last year’s rally had unanimously predicted that bitcoin’s party will end sooner than later.
The lack of legal regulation over Cryptocurrencies’ trading has been a polarizing issue, resulting in unending clampdown on bitcoin and other currencies even when they were touching new highs during last year’s rally. However, bitcoin’s ardent supporters still haven’t given up on the digital currency despite the sharp decline in its price. They claim that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will continue to be seen as viable options by global traders irrespective of the clampdown and on-going erosion in price.