The cryptocurrency market has crashed spectacularly – after a brief positive bounce.
Over Wednesday, most large coins saw considerable gains after the White House revealed its plans for the regulation of cryptocurrency. The plans – which were published early, seemingly by accident – were largely received positively by those who back digital currencies.
But early on Thursday, cryptocurrencies started to crash again. They continued to trade down throughout the day.
It means that most cryptocurrencies are back to where they were trading before Wednesday’s brief upturn.
And it means that the market is back to trading down over the last week, building on continued uncertainty in the cryptocurrency markets.
Bitcoin is down 7 per cent in the last seven days, and ethereum has seen similar performance. Almost no major coins are up over the week.
The entire market has fallen 5.4 per cent over the last week, according to tracking website CoinMarketCap.
Many had expected that the outbreak of war in Ukraine and the resulting turmoil could lead to gains for cryptocurrencies, which have long been touted as a useful way of dealing with problems in the financial markets.