Bitcoin's big wipeout erased $44 billion of market value in January

A series of negative news has buffeted Bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies, with losses intensifying since the start of 2018

Bitcoin is proving that cryptocurrencies can erase wealth as fast as they create it.

Its January slide knocked $44.2 billion off the $200 billion in market value generated in all of last year, the biggest one-month loss in dollar terms in the short history of digital assets.

“Once we got to $10,000, crypto had adopted this Teflon persona of late that it’s always going to find a base and go back up again,” Stephen Innes, head of Asia Pacific trading at Oanda, said by phone from Singapore. “When we’re talking in the realm of riskier assets, and something shaves off