The price of virtual currency Bitcoin, which has been weakening since Tuesday when it seemed to reach the $ 20,000 early in the week, fell sharply since Friday morning in Asia, approaching $ 13,000.
Around 12:50 Tokyo time, bitcoin traded for about $ 13,248, against about $ 15,800 in the early morning, a drop of more than 16%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The most famous of the crypto-currencies is currently the subject of intense speculation and its course had skyrocketed since mid-November, whereas it had begun the year around 1000 dollars.
Unlike the dollar or the euro, this means of payment is not issued by central banks but "mined", or created, decentralized by computers using complex algorithms.
Banks, which with Bitcoin no longer play their traditional role as intermediaries in financial transactions, criticize including a lack of transparency in the setting of its price, whose vertiginous leap was deemed Thursday "abnormal" by the governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda.
Bitcoin, however, gained legitimacy this month with the launch of speculative products based on cryptocurrency by two US stock markets in Chicago.