An employee uses a smartphone during a demonstration of purchasing bitcoin from a bitcoin automated teller machine in Tokyo, Japan.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
An employee uses a smartphone during a demonstration of purchasing bitcoin from a bitcoin automated teller machine in Tokyo, Japan.
Bitcoin prices fell about 7 percent on Thursday after one of the biggest exchanges in China said it will shut down its operation.
The cryptocurrency traded at $3,601.40 at 7:58 a.m. in New York, far below an all-time high of $5,013.91 set earlier this month.
BTC China said in a tweet Thursday it will close down its operations by Sept. 30 as Chinese authorities crack down on cryptocurrencies.
China is tightening its grip on the burgeoning currency. On Sept. 4, Chinese media outlet Caixin reported that regulators banned companies from raising money through initial coin offerings (ICOs), referring to them as an unauthorized fundraising tool that may involve financial scams.
Since then, bitcoin has lost more than 20 percent of its value.
