Bad News from Asia Leads Cryptocurrency Prices to Fall Dramatically

January 16, 2018, most of the cryptocurrencies faced massive falls due to negative news from Asia. Following South Korea’s decision to ban cryptocurrency trading, China's central bank expressed its plans to block all local and offshore, individuals and businesses that provide centralized cryptocurrency exchange-like services.

According to reports, the Vice Governor of the People's Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng, stated that the government would continue to apply pressure to the virtual currency trade and prevent the build-up of risks in that market.

In 2017, China had already authorized local cryptocurrency exchanges to close their businesses and banned ICOs. Same as now, the announcement of the bans had a dramatic influence on the prices of most cryptocurrencies and they lost up to 30% in a day.

However, despite the People's Bank of China “war” against cryptocurrencies a lot of Chinese traders turned to alternative cryptocurrency trading channels in neighboring countries. Now, the People's Bank of China intends to block all cryptocurrency related options, including exchanges, wallets, and trading platforms.

Pan said:

“The financial work conference clearly called for limiting ‘innovations’ that deviate from the need of the real economy and escape regulation.”

Cryptos Fall

A day before, the cryptocurrency market cap as a whole was about $699 billion, but bad news coming from Asia kicked it down by more than 22% - to $539 billion.

All the top-10 cryptocurrencies lost more than 15% of their value in one day. Bitcoin’s price fell by almost 16%, Ethereum lost 16%, Litecoin – 15%, Ripple – 25%, Bitcoin Cash – 17%.

On January 16, Bitcoin’s price fell lower than the support level of $13,000. The minimum level that it reached today was $11,442 but it recovered a little and now is about $11,800. This is the lowest price since the beginning of 2018.

Ethereum lost $200 in 24h. According to coinmarketcap, the Ethereum price is now about $1,043: