After a horror sell-off just under two weeks ago, cryptocurrencies had rebounded defiantly during much of last week.
However, unfortunately for crypto traders, things have taken another turn over the last 24 hours.
While the declines are by no means as severe as they were during the last sell-off, the majority of cryptocurrencies have fallen hard since this time yesterday.
The bitcoin (BTC) price is down 10.5% to US$11,605 per coin, reducing the world's largest cryptocurrency's market capitalisation to US$195 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), shed 9% of its value over the last 24 hours. This has left Ethereum with a market capitalisation of US$102 billion. Earlier this month its market capitalisation had reached as high as US$135 billion.
Crypto favourite Ripple (XRP) has tumbled 14.5% to US$1.36 per coin, wiping US$9.5 billion of its market capitalisation and reducing it down to US$54 billion.
Ripple has been one of the hardest hit cryptocurrencies in January, losing almost US$100 billion of its value since peaking at a market capitalisation of US$148 billion in early January.
Elsewhere, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Cardano (ADA), and Litecoin (LTC) have all sunk lower during the last 24 hours. These three altcoins are down 16%, 16.5%, and 12%, respectively, during the period.
What happened?
Today's decline appears to be related to yet another country cracking down on cryptocurrencies.
According to CNN, a number of Indian banks have suspended cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the country in a bid to curb trading.
India joins South Korea and China as countries that are believed to be actively cracking down on the industry this month.
Considering cryptocurrencies promised to be decentralised and out of reach of governments, they certainly aren't living up to this today and it seems unlikely that they ever will. In fact, I suspect they will become increasingly regulated over the coming months.
Ultimately, I fear this could mean that the digital currencies begin to lose their appeal with traders, making the next few months especially volatile.
