Investing.com - Bitcoin rallied over $10,000 on Friday, as it eased forward from earlier losses.
Bitcoin was trading at $10,074 as of 5:29 AM ET (10:29 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange after hitting an overnight low of $9,583.
Regulation worries weighed down on cryptocurrencies, which had rebounded in recent days. Bitcoin has rallied from its two month low of $6,000 on February 6. Still, the price is 20% lower for the year to date.
European governments are preparing to a set of regulatory measures on digital currencies, which could continue to put pressure on cryptocurrencies. Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) was planning a “case-by-case examination” of ICO tokens, while France’s Autorite des Marches Financiers, the country’s top financial watchdog, has announced all cash-settled cryptocurrency contracts are subject to the country’s strict derivatives laws as well as an advertising ban.
Meanwhile, the UK Treasury Committee is launching an inquiry into cryptocurrencies to investigate whether the technology behind Bitcoin poses a risk to central banking.
Other cryptocurrencies were trading higher, with rival Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rising 4.81% % to $954.61 on the Bitfinex exchange.
The third largest cryptocurrency, Ripple, was up 0.25% to trade at $0.94739on the Poloniex exchange. Litecoin was last at $206.21, a fall of 1.27%.