Bitcoin has tumbled overnight, back below $8,000, and is now down 48% year-to-date, as cryptocurrencies have accelerated lower this week amid the carnage in tech stocks.
Bitcoin’s dead-cat-bounce did not last long…
But the week has been a bloodbath for all cryptocurrencies…
And the overnight weakness is most interesting considering the PBOC appeared to ease back away from its blanket bans on cryptos somewhat. Bloomberg reports that the Chinese central bank will promote digital currency research and development, Deputy Governor Fan Yifei said at a national currency, gold and silver work conference, according to a statement on PBOC website.
Overnight also saw two Japanese crypto exchanges choose shutdown as opposed to regulatory compliance. As CoinTelegraph reports, Japan’s financial services regulator continues to reshape the country’s cryptocurrency exchange industry as two operators announce they are closing, local source Nikkei states March 28.
Two Japanese exchanges, Mr. Exchange and Tokyo GateWay, will cease trading once they have returned customer funds, according to Nikkei.
The news comes as financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) challenges exchanges to prove their security credentials in the wake of Coincheck’s $530 mln hack in January.
As a result of FSA inspections and requests, several operators have opted to stop servicing the Japanese market, Cointelegraph previously reported.
Prior to their closure, Mr. Exchange and Tokyo GateWay were both in the process of securing a license as part of a scheme introduced by Japan in April 2017.
In a blog post March 29, the former confirmed it had withdrawn its application:
“While this is a regrettable result, at present we have determined that it is difficult to be in a state of readiness to be able to respond to changes in the virtual currency landscape, so we decided to withdraw the application for a virtual currency exchange business.”
Tokyo GateWay’s website is currently offline, with no official correspondence available to confirm the Nikkei report.
The FSA meanwhile continues to drip-feed new market players to Japanese consumers, with 16 exchanges obtaining a license since the scheme opened.
This week, internet giant Yahoo! announced it would seek to launch its own operation by April 2019.
