The price of bitcoin collapsed over the weekend and fell by up to 19.5% from the record highs recorded by the popular cryptocurrency in the last week.
Bitcoin fell to $ 52,148.98 on Sunday morning, after hitting a historic high of $ 64,800 on Wednesday, according to CoinDesk. The last trade was just over 55,795 USD.
Other cryptocurrencies, including ether and dogecoin, also had a hit over the weekend. The price of ether, the second largest symbol by market value, fell by up to 18% and fell below $ 2,000 on Sunday, before more recent trading at over $ 2,150. The token also hit recent records, surpassing $ 2,500 on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the dogecoin, which rose more than 400 percent at one point last week and hit a record high of 45 cents, fell to 24 cents this weekend.
What drives the engine is unclear.
An unconfirmed report on Twitter claimed that the US Treasury Department could try to deal with financial institutions for money laundering using cryptocurrencies.
A tweet from the account @Fxhedgers which referred to the possibility of a crackdown, citing unnamed sources, went viral on Saturday night.
The US Treasury Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Cryptocurrencies hit records last week amid enthusiasm around the stock market launch of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which became the largest cryptocurrency company to enter the market on Wednesday. The company’s direct blockbuster listing briefly valued Coinbase at about $ 100 billion (before dropping to just over $ 62 billion by the end of the week), boosting the rest of the cryptocurrency industry.
Despite these record prices, some investors have been worried that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are facing a bubble. The recent rise of the dogecoin, which began as a joke based on the 2013 “Doge” meme, in particular, has fueled concern about a bubble in the cryptocurrency market.