Investing.com – Cryptocurrencies prices gained on Tuesday, despite a report by The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said Bitcoin suffered from “a range of shortcomings”.
Bitcoin was trading at $6,693.8 by 12:05AM ET (04:05GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, up 3.9% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, gained 4.0% at $515.07 on the Bitfinex exchange.
XRP/USD’s XRP token climbed 2.3% higher to $0.53741 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin added 3.2% to $97.5.
The cryptocurrency world is too unstable and crypto mining consumes too much electricity, the Switzerland-based central bank overseer BIS said in a 25-page article on Sunday, adding that Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies are subject to too much manipulation and fraud.
The decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies is a fundamental flaw rather than a key strength, the BIS noted.
“Trust can evaporate at any time because of the fragility of the decentralized consensus through which transactions are recorded,” the report concluded. “Not only does this call into question the finality of individual payments, it also means that a cryptocurrency can simply stop functioning, resulting in a complete loss of value.”
The report came amid multiple cyber-attacks that targeted crypto exchanges this year. Just last week, South Korea-based Coinrail said in a statement on its website that some of the exchange’s virtual currency appeared to have been stolen by hackers. Meanwhile, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck lost more than $500 million to hackers in January.
The value of the cryptocurrency market has plunged 53% this year to $280 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.