Digital currency Bitcoin is experiencing wild volatility on Friday, swinging from a more than 7% drop to a 5% gain on the day in less than an hour.
The cryptocurrency briefly fell below the symbolically significant level of $3,000 per coin for the first time in over a month around lunchtime in London. A crackdown on trading in China is the cause of the fall, with Reuters reporting that exchanges have been ordered to stop signing up new users and announce a trading halt. Bitcoin was down as much as 7.8% against the dollar at one point.
However, at 1.55 p.m. BST (8.55 a.m. ET), Bitcoin is up 4.08% against the dollar to $3,381.46.It represents a swing of around $400 on the day — you can see the wild volatility below:bitcoinMarkets Insider
Despite the fightback, Bitcoin is still around $1,000 below where it started the week. The Financial Times reports that Bitcoin is now on its longest losing streak in a year.
Things got worse after BTCChina, one of the biggest local exchanges, said it would stop trade at the end of the month. Bloomberg is now reporting that exchanges will be banned by the end of the month.
Regulators around the world have been cracking down on the cryptocurrency space since the start of the month. ChineseSouth KoreanHong Kong, and British regulators have all moved to either ban or reign in activity in the so-called "initial coin offering" space — where startups issue new digital coins to fund projects — and this has dented sector sentiment. The combined value of the crypto space, which includes over 800 digitial currencies, has declined by over $50 billion in the last week, according to CoinMarketCap.com.
Elsewhere in the crypto space, Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market value, is down 0.21% against the dollar in early trade. Bitcoin Cash, which was spun off from Bitcoin at the start of last month, is down 1.4% against the dollar.
Get the latest Bitcoin price here.