Cryptocurrency selloff takes fresh hit

LONDON: Turmoil engulfed cryptocurrency markets again, with no end in sight and every major coin extending a rout that’s rocking confidence in the nascent asset class.

The largest digital token, Bitcoin, gave up a small early gain to slump 10% as of 8:58am in London. Having started the year at more than US$14,000, it was trading at US$4,290.43 yesterday.

The combined open interest in Bitcoin futures on exchanges run by CME Group Inc and Cboe Global Markets Inc swelled to the equivalent of 22,266 Bitcoins on Monday, an all-time high. Volume in the contracts jumped to the highest level since July.

Rival currencies including Ether, Litecoin and XRP joined the slide. The latter fell as much as 17% before paring its decline.

Investors in the crypto space have been left reeling by a sudden downturn in Bitcoin after months of relative stability.

The retreat since early November has wiped about US$700bil off the industry’s market value since a January peak, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

The exact trigger for the selloff is unclear, but the moves coincided with a “hard fork” of Bitcoin Cash last week, where two software-development factions failed to agree on a way to upgrade the offshoot of the original Bitcoin – leading to a fresh split of the asset.

Meanwhile, the SEC on Friday announced its first civil penalties against two cryptocurrency companies that didn’t register their initial coin offerings as securities. — Bloomberg