Cryptocurrencies Slump as Japanese Exchange Halts Withdrawals, Trading

Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency News and Talking Points

- One of Japan’s largest exchanges, Coincheck, halted client withdrawals Friday, sending the cryptocurrency market spinning lower.

- Unsubstantiated rumors of a large-scale hack including block moves of Ripple (XRP) and NEM (XEM).

Japanese Exchange Outage Sends Cryptocurrency Prices Sharply Lower

A series of tweets from Japanese exchange Coincheck sent the cryptocurrency market sharply lower, prompting memories of the Mt. Gox attack that hammered the digital coin market four years ago. In February 2014, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy after 850,000 Bitcoins went missing, causing client losses of around $450 million.

The Coincheck tweets stated that withdrawals had been suspended and that trading in all digital coins, apart from Bitcoin (BTC) had been halted. The exchange suspension remained at the time of writing, weighing on the market. Two coins in particular were mentioned in other tweets surrounding the suspension, Ripple (XRP) and NEM (XEM) with the pair showing losses of 11% and 18% respectively. Rumors circulated that one billion XRP may be at risk as well as USD600 million of XEM.

Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization - January 25, 2018

Ripple (XRP) Continues to Fall Towards Important Support Level

We identified Ripple earlier in the week as having further downside action with important support situated around the $0.86 level. XRP was one of the market’s star performers over the last couple of months, rallying from $0.20 to a high of $3.30 before falling away.If Fibonacci support at $0.86 fails to hold, a complete re-trace of the rally back to $0.20 is a very real risk.

Ripple Price Chart Daily Timeframe (October, 2017 – January 25, 2018)

Cryptocurrency Trader Resources

If you are interested in trading Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ripple or Litecoin, we check out our Introduction to Bitcoin Trading Guide.

--- Written by Nick Cawley, Analyst.

To contact Nick, email him at nicholas.cawley@ig.com

Follow Nick on Twitter @nickcawley1