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Bitcoin price suffered a strong pullback on Monday. The prices went to as low as $14,700 on some exchanges, but the cryptocurrency soon recovered and is trading at $15,194 at the time of writing, posting a market cap of $255 billion.
While most of the cryptocurrencies took a hit during the pullback, some suffered more than others. Ripple, for instance, lost nearly $50bln from its market cap, as Ethereum regained it’s number 2 position on Coinmarketcap.
A user on Reddit argues that the price fall was because Coinmarketcap removed South Korean exchanges from their price prediction models sometime between the late hours of Sunday and the early hours of Monday.
Reacting to this change, Coinarketcap’s prices and graphs were thrown into an immediate nosedive, as Korean markets like Bithumb and Coinone make up a significant share of the market. These prices are often much higher than their western counterparts, as South Korean exchanges have substantial premiums for fiat to crypto trading pairs.
When western sellers saw the artificial drop, the original poster continues, they began to sell their currencies “to ‘cut loses’ because of the false impression that [sic] coin is crashing.”
There is a good chance this was the reason behind this sudden pullback. Does that also mean the South Korean government might be coming up with more regulation? Only the time will tell. At present, the entire cryptocurrency market cap is at $743 billion.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. Binance, Bitfinex, Bittrex temporarily say no to new users
Crypto market is seeing a sudden influx of new users. So much so that some of the biggest exchanges had to halt new sign-ups.
Throughout the last half of 2017, digital currency exchanges have posted record numbers of user signup. Binance is reporting the addition of 250,000 users per day while Coinbase has reported numerous days of 100,000+ user signups and Kraken boasts of 50,000 new users per day.
A message from Bitfinex read:
“Thank you for your interest in opening a Bitfinex account. However, due to extraordinary demand, new account creation has been temporarily paused.
Bitfinex focuses on serving professional traders. The reason we have decided to temporarily stop accepting new accounts is that we cannot undermine the quality of our services for our existing traders by flooding the system with new, small accounts.”
2. Microsoft no longer accepts Bitcoin, customer support confirms
First Steam and now Microsoft has stopped accepting Bitcoin.
There were mixed responses on Reddit whether or not the tech giant accepts the largest cryptocurrency.
CCN decided to try to make a purchase using Bitcoin. They found out the Bitcoin payment option wasn’t there. Chatting with Microsoft’s customer support, they were told the company no longer accepts Bitcoin as a payment option. Notably, Microsoft has seemingly decided to stop accepting the cryptocurrency since July 2017.
A member of the Higher support team from Microsoft’s Accounts and Billing team confirmed Microsoft has stopped accepting Bitcoin due to “multiple issues we are receiving with regards to it.” And “there’s no other information cascaded to us on why Microsoft stopped accepting Bitcoin as a payment info aside from the problem processing the payments.”
3. Korea, Japan, and China are swapping ideas for cryptocurrency regulation
Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) chairman Choi Jong-ku has revealed in a meeting attended by vice finance ministers from South Korea, Japan, and China to discuss strategies and ideas on regulating cryptocurrencies.
The meeting, which took place in South Korea, will see the FSC “set up a detailed system of cooperation” with China and Japan.
Choi claimed that Korean authorities are addressing an “irrational” investment trend into cryptocurrencies by the public. A “fever of speculative investment in cryptocurrencies is ongoing,” Choi stated, pointedly adding: “However, cryptocurrencies are unable to play a role as a means of payment.”