Investing.com – Bitcoin slumped to one-month lows on Thursday and breached a key technical level on signs that China is clamping down on crypto-related activity.
Bitcoin fell 6% to $7,647, breaching its 200-day moving average of about $7,935, a key technical level, and was on course to post its third straight weekly decline.
While bitcoin is up nearly 100% on the year, it has fallen 44% from its highs in late June.
Chinese authorities reportedly shut down the Shanghai offices of cryptocurrency exchange Binance as part of a wider effort to stifle cryptocurrency-related businesses and activities in the country, Cointelegraph reported.
The reported crack down on cryptos in the country comes just weeks after bitcoin surged on hopes that China was warming up to the popular crypto after Chinese president Xi Jinping appeared to endorse blockchain – the decentralized technology that powers cryptos.
In late-October, China’s President Xi Jinping said Beijing will increase investment in blockchain technology.
As sentiment continues to sour on the popular crypto, some have offered little hope of a rebound at a time when other assets like stocks are likely to attract new money at the expense of emerging assets like bitcoin.
“Volumes are low, no new money is coming into the ecosystem, and stocks/bonds/gold are all up double-digits year-to-date, which makes the non-crypto world lose focus on this emerging asset class,” John Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman told Bloomberg.
Popular bitcoin trader Mark Dow, a former U.S. Treasury and International Monetary Fund economist, echoed the doom and gloom in the cryptos, warning that bitcoin is dying.