Investing.com - The price of the digital currency bitcoin was trading near one-month lows on Thursday after falling around 11% so far this week amid a flurry of negative news, including reports that China plans to shut down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, Bitcoin hit a low of $3,744.40, not far from Wednesday’s one-month nadir of $3734.00. It was trading at $3,807.20 by 05:25 AM ET (09:25 GMT), down 1.11%.
At current prices, bitcoin has a total market capitalization of around $63 billion.
Bitcoin prices are now down around 20% from the record high of $4,969.00 set at the start of this month, pushing into what market analysts would traditionally label as a bear market.
Even with those losses bitcoin prices have still almost quadrupled in value since the start of the year.
The cryptocurrency market has been hit by uncertainty since as yet unconfirmed reports last Friday that China is planning to shut down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.
The reports came after China announced a ban on initial coin offerings, a kind of fundraising via virtual currencies in order to finance start-ups.
Regulators in China have been investigating the domestic market for bitcoin and other virtual currencies since January of this year.
Prices came under renewed selling pressure on Wednesday after JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said that bitcoin "is a fraud" and will blow up.
Also Wednesday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said that a quarter of the fund managers it surveyed called long-bitcoin was the “most crowded trade,” ahead of long-Nasdaq and short-U.S. dollar.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading, the price of bitcoin offshoot Bitcoin Cash was lower, falling 2.89% to $489.00.
Bitcoin cash has a total market cap of around $7 billion at current prices, making it the third most valuable cryptocurrency.
Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, was down 2.68% to $268.11.