Bitcoin loses nearly half its value in crypto-market bloodbath

The cryptocurrency market has extended its losses, as major digital assets are trading 13 to 25 percent below previous day's prices. Digital-currency locomotive bitcoin has now slid below $11,000.

The $11,000 milestone is 45 percent below the $20,000 peak that bitcoin touched just one month ago. Ethereum also plunged below the psychological $1,000 mark, and is on track to lose all its gains in 2018, which reached 100 percent just four days ago.

The price of the world’s biggest and best known cryptocurrency fell to as low as $10,567 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, not far from its six-week nadir of $10,162 touched the previous day. The session’s high was $11,794.07.

It led the fall in cryptocurrencies, although others such as Ethereum and Ripple, have also slid sharply this week after reports South Korea and China could ban trading, sparking worries of a wider regulatory crackdown.

“Cryptocurrencies could be capped in the current quarter ahead of G20 meeting in March, where policymakers could discuss tighter regulations,” said Shuhei Fujise, chief analyst at Alt Design