Investing.com – Bitcoin tumbled on Wednesday as its attempt to rise above $7,000 was met with a wave of selling pressure and prompted traders to pull their funds from the crypto market, while reports that two new digital currency exchanges have been accredited by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) received some focus.
Bitcoin was trading at $6,587.7 by 11:39AM ET (03:39 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 4.9% in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell by 6.2% to $433.26 on the Bitifinex exchange.
Ripple’s XRP token was also down 4.2% to $0.44695 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin declined 2.8% and traded at $76.6.
BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi G. Fonacier said over the weekend that the regulator has approved applications filed by Virtual Currency Philippines, Inc. and ETranss as cryptocurrency platforms, and that the country’s profile of approved cryptocurrency exchanges has now increased to five.
Elsewhere, the latest Boston College study raised some eyebrows as it suggested that more than half of cryptocurrency start-ups fail within four months of their initial coin offerings (ICO).
"While our results could be an indication of bubbles, they are also consistent with high compensation for risk for investing in unproven pre-revenue platforms through unregulated offerings," Boston College researchers Hugo Benedetti and Leonard Kostovetsky said.
"This is not a surprise as many of them do not have real business plans or companies behind the ICO," said Jamie Hopkins, Professor of Taxation at The American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. "Over the last year and a half, there has been an irrational surge in initial coin offerings. Many of these ICOs were not bringing anything new or valuable to the table, but just trying to ride the wave of publicity that popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin have garnered."
The report further noted that traders make the greatest returns on virtual coin investments if they liquidate their positions within the first six months after the ICO.