The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Majority of cryptocurrencies plummet in value

By Park Ga-young

Published : July 18, 2021 - 15:28

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FnGuide x Dunamu Top 5 digital assets index (FnGuide) FnGuide x Dunamu Top 5 digital assets index (FnGuide)

The majority of cryptocurrencies, which enjoyed records highs only three months ago, are on the downswing, with many of them halving, market data showed Sunday.

Out of 102 digital coins listed on Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, only one coin was up since April. Among the 101 coins that lost value, 84 of them plummeted more than 50 percent from three months ago.

AXS, developed by Axie Infinity, was the only digital coin that bucked the trend, rising more than 150 percent during the past three months.

Four out of five top cryptocurrencies by market cap saw their prices fall from three months ago, when the market enjoyed a major boom for the first time in three years, a digital asset index co-developed by market data provider FnGuide and Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, showed.

The FnGuide x Dunamu Top 5 index -- which tracks Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Ada and Dodgecoin -- hit 6,524.13 points on May 10, before it declined more than 52 percent to 3,079.27 points as of July 16. The index has a base value of 1,000 as of Dec. 1, 2017, with Bitcoin and Etherum each having a weighting of 30 percent, respectively, and the other three coins accounting for 40 percent together. Among these five cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Dogecoin lost more than 50 percent, while Ethereum declined 25 percent during three months.

The extended decline in the cryptocurrency market came as financial regulators across the globe, including China, South Korea and the UK, tightened their grips on cryptocurrencies while developing central bank-led digital currencies in a possible threat to private cryptocoins.

In May, the Chinese government, which is testing a digital yuan, placed restrictions on cryptocurrency mining and transactions. In June, the British financial regulator banned Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, from operating in the country.