Cryptocurrencies took it on the chin Monday, retreating from an all-time high valuation of the sector on Sunday, after South Korean regulators said they would begin inspecting commercial banks to ensure that they are complying with know-your-client and anti-money-laundering rules amid a white-hot fervor for digital assets.
South Korea, a region that is one of the more active in crypto-asset investing, has seen local regulators in recent days step up scrutiny of investing in virtual currencies, like bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.06% according to the Wall Street Journal.
Soon after the news, research and data side CoinMarketCap.com excluded Korean exchanges from its aggregate crypto valuations, which a number of industry players were attributing to Monday’s slide on the site, which is commonly used to track the price of thousands of cyber assets.
Ripple, for example, had been down by as much as 35%, but issued this tweet to those asking about the firm pullback: “For those asking us about the recent price fluctuation, @CoinMarketCap.com has excluded Korean exchanges from their price averages. This changes applies to all of their listed digital assets, not just $XRP.”
For those asking us about the recent price fluctuation, @coinmarketcap has excluded Korean exchanges from their pricing averages. This change applies to all of their listed digital assets, not just $XRP. https://t.co/sMfKucxvXU
— Ripple (@Ripple) January 8, 2018
Prices of certain cryptos in Korea, including bitcoin, can trade at a premium to their values in other exchanges, with an exclusion from sites like CoinMarketCap dragging the average lower.
$800+ billion market value
Those gyrations come after the total market value for the crypto world carved out a fresh record on Sunday above $830 billion. As of late Monday, cryptos had shed nearly $100 billion in total value.
Dogecoin hits $2 billion value
Perhaps underscoring the appetite for digital assets, Dogecoins, a crypto asset created in parody in 2013, hit a market value of nearly $2 billion over the weekend, despite the fact that the coin doesn’t have any real utility as a currency or blockchain in the same way that bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple promise to be. A single Dogecoin was worth 0.015201, with a value of about $1.7 billion in recent trade.
Seagate soars on rumors of Ripple connection
Reports suggesting that Seagate Technology PLC STX, +7.13% may own a stake in Ripple Labs, whose $XRP coins have soared by more than 1,000% in recent days to a price above $3.80, coincided with Seagate’s shares seeing a 7% climb Monday.
Bitcoin futures tank by more than 10%
Bitcoin futures tanked Monday. January futures trading on the CME Group Inc. BTCF8, +1.51% were down nearly 11%, off $1,760, at $14,830, while those traded on the CBOE Group Markets Inc. CBOE, +1.51% for the same month XBTF8, +1.14% were down 12%, or $2,015, at $14,760. The pullback came amid the broader rout in cyber assets on the heels of the Korea news. By comparison, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.17% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.29% finished at records, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.05% closed slightly lower but not far from its own all-time high.