Bitcoin rival Ether leads $640bn cryptocurrency SLUMP amid trading suspension | City & B…

Bitcoin lost 2.1 percent and its biggest rival Ether slumped 8.9 percent while the market capitalisation of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com shrank to $197bn (£152.36bn) – down about $640bn (£494.99bn) from its January peak.

Cryptocurrencies have been on the slide for five of the past six weeks amid broader concerns the adoption of digital assets is taking longer than anticipated.

These fears intensified when Ether co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry had probably already come and gone.

His comments came over the weekend as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stepped in to halt trading in two exchange-traded notes linked to the cryptocurrency.

SEC officials cited a “confusion amongst market participants” based in the US as to the nature of the financial instruments as the reason for the move.

They said their decision was in “the public interest” and that it was line with its mandate to ensure the “protection of…