Bitcoin drops to $30,000 as cryptocurrency market crashes

Bitcoin lost nearly a third of its value on Wednesday, dropping to its lowest level this year, as news of further restrictions on digital currency transactions in China sparked a major selloff in the cryptocurrency market.

The world’s number one digital asset was trading around $30,000 as of 1:13pm GMT, more than 30% lower than the previous day.

The plunge reportedly comes after Chinese authorities banned financial institutions and payment firms from providing services connected to cryptocurrency transactions.

The restrictive measures, coupled with a warning to investors against speculative crypto trading, reportedly exacerbated the selling triggered by Elon Musk’s reversal on Tesla accepting bitcoin as payment. The announcement followed several tweets raising uncertainty over whether the electric automaker had sold its $1.5 billion holdings in the cryptocurrency.

Other cryptocurrencies also saw a massive drop in value with ether dropping nearly 34% to below $2,300. Dogecoin, a meme-based cryptocurrency that has been pushed by Musk’s tweets, declined nearly 50% to around $0.24, according to data tracked by Coindesk.

The value of the entire cryptocurrency market consequently suffered a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars, dropping over 30% on Wednesday to around $1.4 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

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