Bitcoin plunges below $8,000 amid rapid plunge in value of cryptocurrency

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Bitcoin has dropped below the $8,000 mark for the first time since November, amid suggestions that bitcoin mania is now over.

The slumping price is a long way from the nearly $20,000 mark that it was trading at in its heights in December.

The rapid plunge means that it is down nearly 17 per cent over the last day and 46 per cent in the last month. The beginning of 2018 has seen a number of negative records for bitcoin's performance, and the latest slump marks the first time that bitcoin has fallen underneath $9,000.

Other cryptocurrencies are seeing the same dramatic drop. Litecoin, for instance – once held as a successor to bitcoin – has fallen 55 per cent in the last month.

All of the major digital currencies are seeing the same fall, with many dropping even more dramatically than bitcoin, according to the site CoinMarketCap.

The current slump comes amid a range of bad news for cryptocurrencies. They include fears about regulation in South Korea and elsewhere, worries stemming from a huge hack and raid on a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, and concerns about market manipulation.

While the recent plunge brings bitcoin back down by significant amounts, its price is still high compared to more long-term performance. The recent drop removes all the gains made in December – but it is still up 2520 per cent over the last year, with the recent drop simply undoing all of the incredibly fast surge traders saw at the end of last year.

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