Major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ethereum and ripple, continued their downward trading Thursday, after losing much on Wednesday, following Business Insider's report that investment banking major Goldman Sachs was dropping its plans to open a cryptocurrency trading desk.
Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency leader, was trading at $6,420.90, down 9.7 percent over 24-hour period, with a market cap of $110.78 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.
Among other digital currencies, Ethereum, the second biggest cryprocurrency, dropped 20 percent to $228.05, with a market cap of $23 billion. Ripple was down 12.7 percent at $0.288266, with a market cap of $11.4 billion.
It was in May that New York Times reported Goldman Sachs' plans to establish bitcoin trading operation, which would have been the first crypto trading at a Wall Street bank, giving more legitimacy to cryptocurrencies.
Bloomberg quoted Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda Corp., "A lot of retail investors' hopes for a bigger institutional presence were really being driven by Goldman Sachs. This is just a negative, negative sign as far as liquidity goes."
Earlier, reports had emerged that Goldman Sachs was building a cryptocurrency trading desk scheduled to be launched by the end of June, but its CEO Lloyd Blankfein had denied any such move.
Goldman Sachs was one of the few major financial firms to clear Bitcoin futures offered by Cboe Global Markets Inc. and CME Group Inc. when it was launched in December last year.
The bank's latest reported move comes after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent decision to reject applications for bitcoin exchange-traded funds or ETFs, over concern about fraud and manipulation of bitcoin markets.
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