Bitcoin suffered a brief slump in value on Tuesday morning following news that the Russian central bank is planning to ban websites that sell the cryptocurrency.
The digital currency had hit a high of $4,867 early on Monday, according to industry website CoinDesk, its highest since September 2. But it dropped by over $600 to a low of $4,200 at roughly 9:00 a.m. London time, the same time as the announcement from Russia’s central bank. It was down some 12 percent for the session but quickly recovered within moments and was trading at $4,784 by 9:10 a.m. London time.
Sergei Shvetsov, the first deputy governor at the Russian central bank, described the currency as “dubious” on Tuesday morning, according to Reuters.
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“We can not stand apart. We can not give direct and easy access to such dubious instruments for retail (investors),” Shetsov said, according to the news agency.
Shvetsov, speaking at a conference in Moscow, said that Russia will block access to the websites of exchanges that offer cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.