The collapse of bitcoin was fast and dramatic on Wednesday.
The dollar price fell by 30.8% at one point, before the world’s leading cryptocurrency recovered to end the day down just 11%.
But by then other cryptos had been caught up in the carnage, which came after financial bodies in China reinforced the ban on banks and payments companies offering crypto services to their customers and the country’s central bank insisted that they cannot be used for payments.
Ethereum also fell by 26.3% intraday, with litecoin down 32.5% and the Ripple XRP token 30.4% lower at one point.
The leading crypto exchanges were also hit.
Coinbase reported delays in ethereum and ERC20 withdrawals due to network congestion, while reassuring investors that their funds remained safe and deposits unaffected. Its shares, having closed on Tuesday at $239, traded down 11% to $213 on the day of the rout.
Some users attempting to trade on Binance and perhaps pick up a bargain found a message that there was no open channel to do so.
China control
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has taken the lead in creating its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) to make sure that the e-CNY sees off any challenge from new private forms of digital money – stablecoins or cryptos – that might give the population a means of exchange outside its control.
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