Bitcoin crashed into the abyss. At the auction on Tuesday, January 16, its value fell to $ 11.2 thousand. , then played up to $ 13.6 thousand. , but in general the downtrend trend, which started the day before, continued. By 15. 00 MSK 1 bitcoin was worth $ 12.3 thousand. , that is, the loss of its owners amounted to more than a thousand dollars per unit for several hours and about $ 8 thousand. from the middle of December. Experts argue that the same beat bitcoin. Most suspicions fall on Asian countries. First, the market had fears that the PRC authorities could block access to local and foreign crypto-exchange platforms.

Secondly, in South Korea, which accounts for a quarter of all transactions with virtual currencies, it was forbidden to trade bitcoins anonymously. Thirdly, the New Year is approaching the Eastern calendar, which is held by many countries in Asia. at this time traditionally reduced the activity of entrepreneurs, including in the market of crypto-currencies. And maybe it just burst the bubble. Recently, a group of experts from the US and Israel conducted an investigation into the causes of such a sharp increase in the cost of bitcoin - from $ 150 to $ 1 thousand. - in 2013. It turned out that this is the work of one person and a pair of bots.

In an article published in the Journal of Monetary Economics, the experts said that they noticed suspicious activity on the Mt Gox crypto exchange, which were made mainly through Markus and Willy bots, who were not owners of bitcoins. In total, they bought and sold about 600 thousand bitcoins for $ 188 million. As noted in the article, the owners of the exchange could not fail to pay attention to what is happening, but did not intervene, as they received profit from this. By the way, Mt Gox closed after hacking in 2014. , which resulted in the abduction of 650 thousand bitcoins.