Bitcoin Falls by Over 13% Amid Financial Regulators' Reports on Investment Risks

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Bitcoin dropped in value by over 13 percent on Wednesday in light of the statements made by some world financial regulatory agencies about the risks of choosing to invest in digital currencies.

According to CoinMarketCap data, at 06:53 GMT on December 20, the price of bitcoin fell by 13.66 percent to $16,430, however, later it rised to $17,069. At Bitfinex crypto-currency exchange trading platform, Bitcoin value dropped by 13.93 percent to $16,280 and at GDAX — by 7.02 percent to $16,550.

Currently, total crypto-currency market cap is $599.7 billion.

READ MORE: Indian Tax Authorities Probe 500K Bitcoin Traders for Alleged Tax Evasion

This comes a day after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued a statement urging the public to act with caution and mind investment risks as crypto-currencies were "not a legal tender" and "not issued by any government." Similarly, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on December 15 issued a customer advisory describing virtual currency trading risks.

On December 17, prior to the launch of Bitcoin futures trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), world's most popular cryptocurrency has hit a threshold of over $20,000 per coin.

Since the beginning of 2017, the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed, from $997 on January 1 to over $9,000 by the end of November. The futures are believed to further increase its value and result in wider acceptance of the cryptocurrency on the financial market.