Bitcoin rival, ethereum, has lost $17.5 billion

 A single ether token on Tuesday briefly slipped to a six-week low, dropping under $200 and marking a 48% decline, giving up about $17.5 billion since reaching its best-ever market capitalization of $36.7 billion on June 14.

 The downdraft for ether, which powers the ethereum blockchain and is the main rival to more prominent bitcoin, is occurring amid a broad slump in the cryptocurrency universe, which had racked up dazzling, quadruple-digit gains within a short period. Ethereum’s ether, for example, had surged by more than 4,000% -- from $8 in January to its June peak of around $400 -- before mounting its recent pullback 

 However, worries about the speed of the advance for digital currencies, light regulation and a lack of broad usage has given many skeptics reason to call for caution in investing in bitcoin and ether, which some analysts say displays similar attributes to gold GCQ7, +0.24% viewed as a haven asset. 

 More broadly, the combined market value of an array of digital currencies, including ether, bitcoin, and others like ripple and litecoin, are down by about 28% to $82 billion currently from $114 billion last month.