Investing.com - Digital currency bitcoin slumped on Sunday after briefly rising to a one-week high above the $9,000 level in the previous day as a recent price recovery appeared to run out of steam.
Bitcoin was trading at $7,880.1 by 04:27 AM ET (09:27 AM GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down around 9.5% for the day.
Bitcoin has had a turbulent start to the year after it saw its price plunge from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017 to a low of $6,000 on February 6.
The cryptocurrency rebounded from that level to hit a high of $9,074.30 on Saturday, before it saw its price drop once again. Bitcoin remains down around 23% for February.
Cryptocurrency prices have come under pressure as some countries clamped down on trading and major banks implemented a ban on using credit cards to buy digital currencies.
South Korea - where speculation on cryptocurrencies is rife - introduced a raft of measures last month, including a ban on anonymous trading.
Prices have also been hit by fears over potential price manipulation. U.S. regulators are investigating the Bitfinex exchange over its links to digital asset Tether, amid fears that it is being used to artificially inflate bitcoin prices.
Other major cryptocurrencies also traded lower, with Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, down around 9.8% to $787.59 on the Bitfinex exchange.
The third largest cryptocurrency Ripple fell around 14% to trade at $0.90.