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The price of bitcoin continued to tumble Tuesday, falling another 7% to $ 4,387, bringing losses to nearly 30% last week.
A fall of 14% in the world's largest and most recognized cryptocurrency on Monday had brought bitcoin below $ 5,000 for the first time in 13 months. It is now at the lowest level since October of last year.
Other cryptocurrencies have also declined in recent days.
Last December, cryptocurrency rose to a record high of $ 19.511 in highly volatile trading, but fell to $ 13,500 at the start of this year.
"The cryptic bloodbath continues," said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com. "It seems like things only get worse from here.Where is the incentive to buy? It seems rather that the fund is coming out of this market."
On Friday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission took action against two cryptocurrency startups that staged early coin offerings, or Ico, selling cryptocurrency tokens to the public. Airfox and Paragon Coin have agreed to pay civil penalties for the performance of token sales last year without registering them as stock offers.
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This triggered numerous warnings from central bankers and JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon who in September 2017 said bitcoin was a fraud that would eventually explode.
However, this year the bitcoin has become increasingly attractive to institutional investors. Fidelity Investments announced last month that it was launching a new company for institutional clients that will negotiate and retain cryptocurrency activities. Fidelity said it wanted to make them more accessible to investors such as hedge funds, family offices and market intermediaries.
Central banks have also begun to discuss the idea of issuing their digital currencies, since cash is used less and has almost vanished in some countries, such as Sweden and China.
