Cryptocurrency market crashes 20 per cent as website ditches South Korean exchange data

BITCOIN and other cryptocurrencies including ethereum, litecoin and ripple plummeted in value on Monday after Coinmarketcap removed prices from South Korean exchanges without warning.

Prices on South Korean exchanges are typically up to 30 per cent higher than in other countries. The widely used research site’s decision to exclude average price data from Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit resulted in a sudden drop in displayed prices.

That caused confusion among investors and partly contributed to a major sell-off, which was also fuelled by news that South Korean and Chinese regulators planned to increase oversight on cryptocurrency trading and mining.

“This morning we excluded some Korean exchanges in price calculations due to the extreme divergence in prices from the rest of the world and limited arbitrage opportunity,” Coinmarketcap wrote on Twitter. “We are working on better tools to provide users with the averages that are most relevant to them.”

The total market capitalisation of more than 1300 cryptocurrencies tracked by Coinmarketcap fell from around $US830 billion ($A1056 billion) to bottom out at $US669 billion ($A851 billion) on Monday, a drop of 20 per cent. By late Monday, the market was sitting at around $US742 billion ($A944 billion).