Investing.com – Crypto prices continued its downward trajectory on Friday amid uptick in negative sentiment in the wake of regulatory crackdowns in the U.S. and Japan this week. Bitcoin fell below $9,000, just one day after it lost its 10,000 mark, while other cryptocurrencies also showed a significant drop in value.
Bitcoin was trading at $8,655.0 by 12:10pm ET on the Bitfinex exchange, down 9.8% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, plunged 10.1% to $662.95 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Ripple's XRP token dived 8.2% to $0.76179 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin also plunged 8.9% to $163.50.
Reports that Japan’s Financial Services Agency punished several crypto exchanges and suspended businesses at two of them sent prices of most of the major cryptocurrencies down more than 8% earlier today. This was after a reported $530 million cryber heist at the Japan-based Coincheck in January.
The news followed reports on Thursday that Securities and Exchange Commission said it would require digital asset exchanges to register with the agency, which was also cited as headwind for the digital coins.
On the other hand, ex-Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Jim Newsome’s comment received some attention today as he said the cryptocurrency industry is too immature and there is no “big money” around as institutional investors sit on the sidelines because of the regulatory uncertainty.
Newsome warned that he felt there is “global competition” among international regulators to supervise cryptocurrency and the U.S. agencies have to be careful that they don’t run behind the rest of the world in innovation.