Investing.com – Cryptocurrencies were on a down trend today in face of a de facto ban from the South Korean government and crypto exchange Coinbase embroiling in lawsuits.
The South Korean government has reportedly issued a ban on government officials from holding and trading cryptocurrencies, and could be subject to disciplinary actions even their crypto activities have nothing to do with their jobs.
Bitcoin was trading at $11,280.0 by 12:12am ET on the Bitfinex exchange, down 2.0% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, slid 2.2% at $846.50 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Ripple’s XRP token, dropped 2.92% to $0.95139 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin was trading 1.64% lower at $208.40.
Crypto-exchange Coinbase received some attention today as it faced two new class-action lawsuits, with one involving insider trading. The exchange also made headlines last week for handing data of 13,000 users to the Internal Revenue Service.
Separately, the US Marshals Service said today that around 2,170 Bitcoins, worth nearly $25 million, that were seized during the federal criminal, civil and administrative cases would be auctioned off on 19 March, 2018.
Elsewhere, three most popular cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, Bitfinex, and Kraken announced to cut Bitcoin withdrawal fees by up to half amidst a backdrop of increased Segwit adoption and transaction batching.