Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies were lower on Monday, with Bitcoin falling over 2% after nearing a week and a half high.
The digital currency had risen to $7,754.00 on Sunday but was back to the $7,500 mark by Monday. Bitcoin was trading at $7,540,00 falling 2.48% the Bitfinex exchange, as of 9:03 AM ET (13:03 GMT) and has struggled to gain ground for the past one-and-a-half weeks.
Most virtual currencies plunged in May after the U.S. Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into the possibility that traders are manipulating the Bitcoin market.
Other digital coins were lower on Monday, with Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, falling 4.21% to $596.37 on the Bitfinex exchange. Ripple, the third largest virtual currency, decreased 2.83% to $0.64777 while Litecoin was at $120.32, down 5.84%.
The crypto community was unnerved by news that software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) was acquiring GitHub, a code repository. Many blockchain and digital asset projects are hosted on GitHub for community members to contribute to the code or get deeper insight into it.
Users on Twitter and Reddit were dismayed by the news, with many worried the impact the large institution could have on the decentralized blockchain community.
Meanwhile a new trading platform service has launched in Europe. Gibraltar, a British territory, has set up a licensed and regulated digital coin exchange, called the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange. A subsidiary of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange, it would be one of the first regulated cryptocurrency exchanges operated by an EU stock exchange.
The exchange has started trading with limited operations, and 300 retail accounts and a few institutional participants are already on the platform.