BitConnect this morning (January 17) announced that it would close its virtual currency exchange and lending activities, after receiving two written requests to stop operations from authorities in Texas and North Carolina.
Bitcoin and many digital currencies have been sold off massively.
A series of major digital currencies such as Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Litecoin (LTC)… also suffer from the same situation.
The BCC coin related to the BitConnect exchange alone has lost more than 90% of its value after just one trading day, currently only 24 USD, compared to the peak of more than 400 USD previously established.
The 10 largest coins according to Coinmarketcap’s statistics are all in the red.
The downward trend continues for a series of digital currencies due to concerns that policymakers in many countries will strengthen transaction monitoring measures, of which the recent incident at BitConnect is an example.
In an interview on TBS, South Korean Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said `there is no disagreement on the management of speculative activities`, referring to the need for investors to use account names.
Meanwhile, China is strengthening measures to tighten virtual currency trading, targeting online platforms and phone applications similar to exchanges, according to a source close to Bloomberg.
In an internal announcement from a Government meeting on January 16, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of China (PBoC), Pan Gongsheng, said authorities should ban centralized virtual currency trading activities as well as
Authorities in this country issued a ban on virtual currency trading last year.
Also on January 16, Steven Maijoor, President of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), said that participating in initial coin offerings (ICOs) could cause investors to lose money.
“As ESMA, we raised the alarm about ICO activity in November 2017, because although in principle an ICO can provide you with a service in exchange for the virtual currency you purchase, or