Bitcoin sinks as cryptocurrency sell-off gathers pace via @reuters

As reported by Reuters, “Bitcoin plunged more than 12 percent on Monday, extending falls in recent weeks in a broad-based selloff in digital currencies as sentiment sours.

“Several factors have accelerated the downturn, analysts said, including increased U.S. regulatory scrutiny and a delay to January 2019 of the widely-anticipated launch of bitcoin futures by Bakkt, Intercontinental Exchange’s crypto platform.

“’These factors coupled with lukewarm network fundamentals and reports of falling adoption of crypto as a tool for services such as payments, have led to strong selling pressure against a lack of buying resistance — to a point of apparent capitulation,’ said Aditya Das, analyst at Brave New Coin, a crypto asset market data company.

“Bitcoin fell to as low as $3,519.94 on the Bitstamp platform, after earlier falling to a 14-month trough of $3,462,57, and was last down 12.6 percent. It has lost 74 percent of its value so far this year, after hitting nearly $20,000 in December last year.

“Other digital currencies also fell sharply, with Ethereum’s ether down 7 percent at $106.69 and Ripple’s XRP falling 5.6 percent to 34 U.S. cents.

“Cryptocurrency market capitalization plummeted to $122.3 billion on Monday, down 85 percent from its peak of nearly $800 billion hit in early January this year.”