Crypto Currency Correction Continues

The correction on crypto currencies continued in earnest on Tuesday morning with prices dropping further after a mini revival over the night. The Asian market had seen an increase in prices especially those of Ripple and Ethereum which posted gains of around 10% with Ripple reaching a 15% gain at one point. However that soon evaporated and by the early morning, prices were down again and losses were seen all across the board.

Bitcoin was amongst the first to suffer as it continued moving downwards to levels not seen since early November when the price moved perilously close to below the $10,000 mark. The Bitcoin market cap has practically halved in value for the past month and there seems to be no signs of any respite anytime soon. January looks to have been a terrible month for all investors in crypto currencies that have declined by an incredible 60% in market cap. In fact the market cap for all crypto currencies is barely above the $400 billion mark - a decrease of over 50% from the top levels of $810 billion reached just a month ago.

Consequentially the crypto market remained consistently bearish over the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency market continued to register losses over the past 24 hours, as all top 20 cryptocurrencies (by market cap) tumbled. Yesterday, South Korea took another step against Bitcoin traders, as it now bans the use of anonymous bank accounts for BTC trading.

However this is being seen as good news for investors although price trends seem to tell otherwise. South Korea will enforce its ban on anonymous bank accounts used in cryptocurrency trading in a week from now. In conjunction, six domestic banks will issue new trading accounts that follow KYC norms.

According to multiple reports on Tuesday, South Korean regulators have rubberstamped the ban on anonymous cryptocurrency trading through anonymous virtual bank accounts in the country. Strictly speaking, the long-anticipated move will not allow traders to make deposits into their wallets at domestic cryptocurrency exchanges unless their names on their depositing bank accounts matches the account name at cryptocurrency exchanges.

In tandem, at least six South Korean banks will issue new trading accounts for cryptocurrency transactions on January 30. As banks rollout these new accounts with a system that will match names between banking and crypto-exchange accounts, existing anonymous virtual accounts will be banned on the same day, Financial Services Commission (FSC) vice-chairman Kim Yong-beom told reporters on Tuesday.

Other crypto currencies that had seen moderately good performance of late such as Dash and Bitcoin Cash also saw steep drops this morning with the situation rapidly getting worse. In fact the total price movement over a week means that crypto currencies are practically trading at the same levels as they were a week ago so any recovery from the steep 30% correction of last week has comparatively disappeared with further losses expected over the next few hours. Ironically the US markets have continued to surge reaching new highs daily and this might mean that those investors who were into the crypto currency market are taking their holdings out and putting them back into traditional stocks.

The US Senate yesterday reached a deal to end the Government shutdown through February 8th. As a result, Wall Street climbed to new heights, and the Dow Jone, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all closed at all-time highs. Several stocks also notched new records, including Netflix, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), NVIDIA, Visa, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase, PepsiCo, Fiat Chrysler, Activision Blizzard, Walmart, Coca Cola and McDonald's.