Bitcoin’s trading price suffered this week. The cryptocurrency was trading by as much as $11,649 on Monday, March 5, but plunged to as low as $8,370 by early Friday morning – representing a 32% drop in value.
The price slump occurred after Binance exchange users reported suspicious activity happening to their accounts and fear in the market that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is setting up a crackdown – the SEC has already expressed its intent on having cryptocurrency exchanges register with the agency.
The SEC said on March 7 that platforms trading digital assets which meet the definition of a security must register with the agency as an exchange. The SEC said it is undertaking these measures “to protect investors and prevent against fraudulent and manipulative trading practices.”
CNBC’s Bob Pisano reported on Thursday – when the cryptocurrency dropped to as low as $8,370:
“Cryptocurrencies have seen more fallouts today for fears of regulations.”
“Bitcoin price has now fallen 18% over the last two days as watchdogs weigh in on the digital currency space,” Pisano added.
A Bitcoinist report by “JaketheCryptoKing” on BTC’s price movement this week noted that Bitcoin “has a tendency to overreact,” adding that news reports created “a state of panicked selling, fear,” with the cryptocurrency ultimately just suffering “a thrashing due to negatively framed articles and what was perceived as bad news.”
Jake said that SEC involvement should actually be seen as good news for investors wanting to “filter out scams and fraud”.
He added: “The news this week did not provide justification for hundreds of billions of dollars being shed from the total market cap of all cryptos and a 30% dip in the price of BTC.”
At the time of writing (18:00 UTC), the cryptocurrency is trading at around the $9,200 level, down roughly 23.5% from its peak trading price on Monday, but up 9.4% from its Friday low.