Asia leads crypto selloff on China crackdown

All cryptocurrencies have taken a battering during the Asian trading session today as a huge selloff has commenced. Fears have escalated over further clampdowns in China and possible restriction in South Korea. The markets have fallen over 36% in the past week and total market capacity at the time of writing was just over $500 billion, down from $830 billion two weeks ago.

Reports have emerged of another crackdown in China, this time on domestic crypto traders and their methods of accessing digital currencies. In its usual authoritarian style the government plans to block access to local and overseas crypto exchanges and prevent peer-to-peer trading. It is not the first time China has clamped down on crypto with a ban on exchanges in September and recent restrictions on power usage for mining operations. Mining factories and crypto exchanges have left China for friendlier countries such as Hong Kong and Japan.

Bitcoin has declined from $14,500 this time last week to just over $11,000 today representing a drop of almost 25% in seven days. Looking at the month it has fallen over 45% and many chart analysts predict it could go as low as $8,000 before showing any sign of recovery.

Ethereum has also fallen from its all-time high of $1,425 last week to just over $1,000 today. A more optimistic view can be seen on the three month chart where ETH is still around 200% up on its trading price of $300 back in early November. Ethereum has performed exceptionally well as many altcoin trades can now be made in ETH instead of BTC which is slower and costlier.

The bloodbath has continued with all other coins and Ripple has taken the biggest beating with a 70% drop from its record peak of $3.80 to $1.20 today. Litecoin has also continued its downward slide from a high of $375 this time last month. The coin has dropped over 50% in a month to $185 where it trades today. Bitcoin Cash which has been holding a $2,500 level for a couple of weeks has dropped down below $2,000 again and even NEO which had a record high of $195 a couple days ago has lost a lot of its gains and fallen back to $135.

Markets have recovered from Chinese clampdowns before and they are all still way up on prices three months ago. Panic selling and FUD seems to be fueling this current slide so those hodling may be inclined to buy the dips and stock up on their favourite cryptos.

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