Digital currency down 40 per cent this year
Amid growing regulatory backlash, the price of Bitcoin has dropped below $8,000 for first time since November last year.
Slipping by more than 40 per cent this year already, the digital currency fell as low as $7,910 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange today.
Earlier this week, Facebook had banned advertisements for cryptocurrencies amid concerns that too many were being used to mislead potential customers.
Few days ago, South Korea had announced deadline for banning the trading of the cryptocurrency from anonymous bank accounts. A number of Indian banks have also frozen top Bitcoin accounts in latest crackdown.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney also said this week that the G20 needed to consider how easily digital coins should be converted into other central-bank issued currencies, as well as the role of anonymity, as ‘a lot of the underlying use of these currencies has been illicit activity’.
Established in 2009 after the financial meltdown, Bitcoin is a digital currency that has no central bank or regulatory authority backing it up. The digital coins are stored in a digital wallet or on the cloud and can be used in transactions.
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