“The market is realizing that it doesn’t really matter what happens in China anymore, the exchanges based there no longer dominate trading activity and more mature liquidity from institutional players in Japan, Korea and Europe is providing a boost to this next bull cycle,” said Aurelien Menant, founder and CEO of Hong Kong-based token exchange Gatecoin, told CNBC via email on Monday.
“It’s also important to remember that the crackdown in China was targeting the activities of the local exchanges for not complying with the Chinese financial regulatory environment and not a crackdown on bitcoin and blockchain technologies.”
Despite the recent fall, bitcoin is still enjoying a remarkable 2017. The price for the cryptocurrency is up 293 percent since the start of the year.
Charles Hayter, founder of digital currency comparison website CryptoCompare, said it is still unclear whether the move by Chinese regulators will crystalize into a full, permanent ban on digital currencies.
“Earlier in the year the market was bullish whilst the Chinese exchanges were facing regulatory implementation and Japan picked up the slack,” he told CNBC via email.
“The market is moving on and realizing the price drama was excessive and overdone.”