Bitcoin price fell over the weekend, falling 19.5% from the popular cryptocurrency’s record highs last week.
According to CoinDesk, Bitcoin fell to $ 52,148.98 on Sunday morning after hitting an all-time high above $ 64,800 on Wednesday. It was the last trade at just over $ 55,795.
Other cryptocurrencies, including ether and Dogecoin, were also affected over the weekend. The price of Ether, the second largest token by market value, fell as much as 18% and fell below $ 2,000 on Sunday before recently trading above $ 2,150. The token had also hit record highs recently, surpassing $ 2,500 on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Dogecoin, which rose more than 400% at one point last week to hit an all-time high of 45 cents, fell to 24 cents this weekend.
What exactly drives the drop is unclear.
An unverified report on Twitter alleged that the U.S. Treasury Department may be attempting to crack down on financial institutions for cryptocurrency money laundering.
A tweet from the @Fxhedgers account, which indicated the possibility of action citing unnamed sources, went viral on Saturday evening.
The US Treasury Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Cryptocurrencies hit record highs last week amid excitement over the debut of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which went public on Wednesday as the largest cryptocurrency company. The company’s blockbuster direct listing briefly valued Coinbase at around $ 100 billion (before falling to just over $ 62 billion by the end of the week), which gave the rest of the cryptocurrency industry a boost.
Despite these record prices, some investors were concerned that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were experiencing a bubble. In particular, the recent surge in Dogecoin, which started as a joke based on the 2013 meme “Doge”, has fueled concerns about a bubble in the cryptocurrency market.
