Investing.com – Cryptocurrencies’ prices fell on Wednesday, with Ethereum trading as much as 6% lower on reports that the digital currency has come under scrutiny by regulators.
Bitcoin was trading at $9,037.4 by 12:10AM ET (04:10GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 2.6% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell 1.3% at $672.68 on the Bitfinex exchange.
XRP/USD’s XRP token slipped 0.7% higher to $0.83093 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin fell 2.4% to $146.91.
Ethereum is under regulatory scrutiny, The Wall Street Journal reported, adding that regulators are considering to treat cryptos as securities.
The crypto creation in 2014 was “probably an illegal securities sale” in the eyes of some regulators, and that the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are scheduled to discuss crypto-related matter on Monday, according to the report.
Elsewhere, the Hong Kong Financial Services and Treasury (FSTB) released a 132-page report and concluded cryptocurrencies have “little impact” on organized crimes in the city.
The report, titled “Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment,” stated that the investigation indicated virtual currencies were not used in terrorist financing or other prevalent predicate offences.
The report then further noted that such virtual currencies might be more attractive in countries where traders are interested in circumventing currency controls or beat high inflation rates.
“Although there is inherent ML/TF vulnerability related to VCs (virtual currencies), there does not seem to be any visible impact affecting the overall risk in Hong Kong so far. The risk of VCs is assessed as medium-low”, the FSTB said in its report.