Bitcoin’s big wipeout erased US$44bil of value in January

HONG KONG: Bitcoin is proving that cryptocurrencies can erase wealth as fast as they create it.

Its January slide knocked US$44.2bil off the US$200bil in market value generated in all of last year, the biggest one-month loss in dollar terms in the short history of digital assets.

“Once we got to US$10,000, crypto had adopted this Teflon persona of late that it’s always going to find a base and go back up again,” Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pacific trading at Oanda, said by phone from Singapore.

“When we’re talking in the realm of riskier assets, and something shaves off 50% of its value, it tells me there’s going to be an extension lower. The sad thing is a lot of people will be burned, because they will continue to buy dips.”

Since reaching a peak of almost US$20,000 in early December after the introduction of futures contracts on regulated exchanges in the US, a series of negative news has buffeted Bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies, with losses intensifying since the start of 2018.

A record US$500mil heist of an alternate coin at Japanese exchange Coincheck Inc on Jan 26 upped the pressure on regulators to probe business practices within the largely unregulated industry, while authorities in trading hotbed South Korea continue to debate more serious measures including a ban on such exchanges.