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Bitcoin Tumbles After South Korea’s Biggest Crypto Exchange Raided

Published 05/11/2018, 10:51 AM
Updated 05/11/2018, 10:51 AM
© Reuters.  Bitcoin down 13% in rough week for cryptocurrencies

© Reuters. Bitcoin down 13% in rough week for cryptocurrencies

Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies tumbled across the board on Friday adding heavily to a major weekly decline after news that South Korean officials raided the country’s largest crypto exchange.

Bitcoin sank 7.90% in the last 24 hours to reach $8,602.20 on the Bitfinex exchange by 10:46AM ET (14:46GMT), the largest crypto by market capitalization has lost 12.7% so far this week after an attack at the $10,000 level last Saturday petered out at $9,990.

Major rival Ethereum slid 10.2% to $682.54 in the last 24 hours, bringing weekly losses to 16.7%.

Ripple tumbled 13.2% to $0.69200, upping the weekly decline to 23.5%, while Bitcoin Cash, product of the Bitcoin fork and the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, plunged 13.7% to $1,419.00 but still showed a 19.5% fall for the week.

While cryptocurrencies have seen severe selling pressure this week amid a series of negative comments from high profile investors, news that South Korean prosecutors raided the country's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, on Thursday and Friday seemed to derail any possibility of a recovery.

According to the Yonhap news agency, the raid was undertaken due to suspicion of fraud.

In other news that may reflect waning interest in digital currencies, Nvidia’s chief financial officer Colette Kress commented that the firm was expecting a decline in chip demand from cryptocurrency miners.

In earnings released late Thursday, Nvidia disclosed that it made $289 million in sales - about 9% of its overall $3.2 billion in revenue - from chips for mining cryptocurrencies.

However, Kress noted that she expected cryptocurrency-related revenue to fall 65 percent to about $100 million in the next quarter.

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