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The digital money markets are seeing three consecutive losing sessions, with most major plays being in the red on Friday morning.
Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, has lost more than 15% since Wednesday, dropping to $ 6,279.08, its lowest level in two weeks. Friday morning, exchange of a bitcoin
BTCUSD, -0.01%
last change of hands at $ 6,373.96, down 1.1% since Thursday at 5:00 pm Eastern Time on Kraken trade.
The general consensus was that a two-day sale was the result of a report that Goldman Sachs would have put its encryption business on hold citing regulatory uncertainty. However, on Thursday night, a senior executive of the Goldman Sachs Group
GS + 0.01%
demystified the report, calling false news.
"It was not as if we had announced something or that something had changed for us," said Marty Chavez, chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs, at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. "I never thought I really meant to use that term, but I really should describe it as false news."
He went on to say that the bank was still working on a non-deliverable futures contract with bitcoin.
Lily: Despite crypto carnage, investors plan to add to digital assets, survey finds
If it is not the news of Goldman, then what?
With Bitcoin unable to rally after Chavez denied Wednesday's report, Danny Scott, co-founder of the CoinCorner crypto-swap, has launched an alternative theory that the sale would have been the result of a single seller, or bitcoin.
"Many speculated that this week's drop in bitcoin prices was due to the news that Goldman Sachs would be abandoning its cryptocurrency trading plans," writes Scott in an email to MarketWatch.
"A different theory that we follow in recent days comes from a very old Bitcoin wallet that starts to move a large amount of bitcoins (100,000+ BTC). These seem to come from MtGox, which may well correspond to their recent announcement that creditors can now open claims to any lost funds.
MtGox was an exchange of bitcoins that was hacked in February 2014, when more than 800,000 bitcoins were stolen. Over the next few months, about 200,000 bitcoins were recovered and they were sitting in a trust account, waiting to be liquidated and distributed to creditors.
Lily: Former Mount Gox CEO does not want his billion dollars
No respite for altcoins
It's groundhog day for altcoins, smaller spare parts than Bitcoin, all pointing down on Friday. Ether
ETHUSD, -1.14%
is down 2.9% to $ 217.93, Bitcoin Cash
BCHUSD, -0.39%
down 1.4% to $ 501.50, Litecoin
LTCUSD, + 0.39%
dropped by 1.4% to $ 55.55 and Ripple's XRP coin
XRPUSD, -1.66%
is trading at 29 cents, down 3%.
Bitcoin futures are tied with spot markets. The September contract of Cboe Global Markets Group Inc.
XBTU8, -0.12%
was down 0.8% to $ 6,355, while CME Group Inc.'s comparable September contract
BTCU8, -0.54%
lost 0.9% to $ 6,370.
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