Bitcoin drops below $7K

Digital Cryptocurrency Bitcoin which was on a roll in December 2017 has fallen more than 15 percent to record a three month low. The cryptocurrency fell as low as $6,853.53 in early afternoon trading in New York. With this drop, the highly volatile cryptocurrency has lost about 50 percent so far in 2018.

"We envisage this decline will continue, setting the next technical level at $5,000 a coin," said Miles Eakers, the chief market analyst at Centtrip, which specializes in foreign exchange, worldwide payments, and treasury management.

"The current overall market has been in a downtrend for sure," said Bruno Skvorc, CTO and lead blockchain developer for CryptoHunt. He added, "However, this downtrend is a natural cycle of any market, especially one that says parabolic growth like we saw in Sept-Dec."

British bank Lloyds Banking Group said it was banning customers from using credit cards to buy Bitcoin. It joined US banking giants JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup, which announced similar bans on concerns the lenders could be held liable when the volatile currencies plunge in value. India said it was planning steps to make virtual currencies illegal within its payments system and to regulate the trading of crypto assets.

Other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum( down nearly 19 percent at $703.40) and Ripple(down 14.1 percent at 71 cents) also witnessed a downward trend.