Today's trading has been rough so far for cryptocurrencies in general
From Coinbase's GDAX exchange, Bitcoin touched a low of $12,712.00 - a drop of over 36% compared to the highs posted last week at $19,891.99. While 36% may sound a bit steep, in value terms that's a whopping $7,180 to put things into perspective.
The low today was halted at the upward trendline from Nov to Dec.
Stephen Innes - head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda Corp - says that, "at the heart of the matter was a frenzied demand for coins with limited supply has now led to unsophisticated investors holding the bag at the top".
The only top 5 cryptocurrency that's higher on the day is actually Ripple. Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin are all facing heavy losses on the day. The jump in Ripple sees it rise to the 3rd highest market cap in the crypto space - leaping ahead of Bitcoin Cash.
One possible reason that's keeping Ripple stable here is that last week 60 banks in Japan and South Korea said that they would be using Ripple's blockchain technology to test inter-bank transfers.
Other than that, it's really like the wild, wild west out there today in the cryptocurrency world.
From coinmarketcap.com.
From Coinbase's GDAX exchange.
