But it early last week, when China banned the issuance of new digital coins for fundraising purposes - a phenomenon known as initial coin offerings, or ICOs. Dimon’s warning triggered a further 11 percent collapse in the price of bitcoin, which had already lost around 15 percent of its value in 10 days. The cryptocurrency tumbled to as low as $3,720.01 on the Bitstamp exchange before recovering to trade around $3,810 by 1524 GMT, still down 8.7 percent on the day. Dimon told an investor conference in New York that if any of his traders were found trading bitcoin he would “fire them in a second“, and that bitcoin was “worse than tulips bulbs,” referring to a famous market bubble from the 1600s. “This is not the first time that Jamie Dimon has spoken against the currency - the last time he had a similar go on the currency was in November 2015,” said ThinkMarkets analyst Naeem Aslam.

Source: New Strait Times September 13, 2017 15:56 UTC