Investing.com - Ripple and bitcoin prices extended a recent selloff on Wednesday, with ripple plunging around 20%, while rival Ethereum rose to fresh record highs as its strong rally continued.
Ripple's XRP token was trading at $1.82 by 05:57 AM ET (10:57 AM GMT) on the Poloinex exchange after falling as low as $1.61 earlier. Prices had fallen around 15% on Tuesday.
Bitcoin was trading at $13,718.00 on the Bitfinex exchange after falling 3.4% on Monday.
Ethereum hit an all-time high of $1,386.60 on the Bitfinex exchange before pulling back to trade at $1,290.00.
That pushed Ripple’s market capitalization down to $74.6 billion and raised Ethereum’s value to $125 billion.
On Monday, Ethereum regained the title of second most valuable cryptocurrency after being temporarily knocked into third place by Ripple's XRP token last week.
Bitcoin remained the largest cryptocurrency by market cap with a value of $236 billion.
Digital currencies have sold off since website CoinMarketCap on Monday unexpectedly moved to exclude prices from South Korean exchanges from its calculations of digital currency rates.
Prices were also hit by news that South Korean financial authorities were inspecting six local banks that offer virtual currency accounts to institutions.
A report that the Chinese government is considering further action to stamp out cryptocurrency mining also fueled the selloff.
The rally in Ethereum was supported by recent comments from its co-creator Steven Nerayoff who said in an interview with CNBC on Monday that its protocol could lead to mass adoption for a wide variety of blockchain applications.
"What you're seeing with Ethereum is exponential increase in the number of projects — there are billions of dollars being poured into the ecosystem right now — maybe 10 times more projects this year than last year, which could easily lead to a doubling, probably a tripling in price by the end of the year," he said.