Shares of blockchain-related firms also fell as crypto
stocks were hit by trading platform outages. But the major focus was on El
Salvador, where the government had to temporarily unplug a digital wallet to
cope with demand.
Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency,
tumbled more than 17 percent to $43,000 before paring some losses to trade down
9.20 percent at $47,140.27. Earlier Bitcoin had hit a session high of
$52,948.00.
Smaller rival Ether, the coin linked to the Ethereum
blockchain network, fell 11.99 percent. Ether price in India stood at Rs. 2.77
lakhs as of 10am IST on September 8
Major cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase Global and Kraken
said they faced delays in some transactions on their platforms.
Coinbase said some transactions were delayed or canceled at
"elevated rates" and that "our apps may be experiencing
errors." The exchange later said issues with Coinbase card swipes were
resolved and that transactions were going through normally.
The Gemini exchange said it temporarily entered a
full-maintenance period to address an exchange-related issue that caused
performance trouble.
Coinbase shares slid 4.02 percent.
Anything related to cryptocurrencies appeared to suffer.
Cryptocurrency miners Riot Blockchain fell 7.38 percent and Marathon Digital
Holdings slipped 7.76 percent.
Shares of MicroStrategy, a BTC buyer and business
intelligence software firm, fell 7.64 percent. © Reuters