Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices slid on Thursday amid tighter regulations worldwide and a South Korean Supreme Court ruling that cryptocurrency is an asset with economic value that can be confiscated. The news received some attention among the cryptocurrency traders.
Bitcoin was trading at $7,394.1 by 12:27AM ET (04:27 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 1.37% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, lost 2.8% at $563.25 on Bitfinex.
Ripple’s XRP token shed 2.67% to $0.59675 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin dropped 2.38% to $117.57.
On Wednesday, South Korea’s top court said the government could confiscate cryptocurrencies as profits from crime on the grounds that they are assets with economic value.
The ruling stemmed from the case against a Korean man who operated an online pornography site. Prosecutors seized his cash as well as 191 bitcoins held in a wallet at an exchange.
“This marks the first time a cryptocurrency has been subject to confiscation,” the Korea Times wrote.
Meanwhile, U.S. regulators won an order to halt a fraudulent coin offering scheme.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it had won an emergency court order stopping an alleged fraud involving an initial coin offering that raised $21 million from investors in the United States and elsewhere.
The U.S. blockchain startup Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS) and its president Michael Stollaire allegedly promoted fake business relationships with companies like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Disney.
“This ICO was based on a social media marketing blitz that allegedly deceived investors with purely fictional claims of business prospects,” said Robert A. Cohen, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit. The court also approved an emergency asset freeze and the appointment of a receiver for TBIS.
Charges against TBIS come as the U.S. government steps up efforts to regulate cryptocurrency and blockchain companies, while cracking down on fraud in the space.