The week had a good start for the crypto market, with Bitcoin and major altcoins mostly in the green throughout the days.
However, in a turn of events, the market experienced a large decline on Wednesday when within an hour it lost roughly $16 billion.
The total market cap is currently barely holding grounds above the $200 billion price point, while the leading digital asset on the market, Bitcoin, fell from over $6,650 to below $6,300.
Nevertheless, as other coins drop in value, BTC continues to have a significant lead with a market dominance of 54 percent at press time.
The second largest coin, Ethereum (ETH), is standing at a price of roughly $200 at press time. In 24 hours, its price went down for more than 11 percent.
On the other hand, Ripple (XRP) is continuously losing value, after the latest price surge this digital asset went through.
Ripple's launch of a new product, xRapid, was the reason behind a massive growth of XRP's market worth, however, it's still unclear why the coin's value kept falling in these last two weeks.
XRP was also struck by the latest market decline and lost almost 13 percent of its value in just a day.
Before the extreme fluctuations on the crypto market, CNBC Cryptotrader host Ran Neuner posted a tweet pointing out a Bitcoin price upsurge.
The crypto analyst has voiced a positive approach to cryptocurrencies on many occasions.
According to Neuner, it was too obvious that the price of Bitcoin is "about to explode" that he bought BTC for his parents.
The Government Might Be Tracking Your Transactions
Did you know that there exists a possibility for your crypto transactions to be tracked down by the government?
Earlier this month, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations official Matthew Allen in a testimony for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expressed concerns about the role of cryptocurrency in the illicit drug trade.
Allen spoke about a case in which drug dealers transferred large quantities of fentanyl into the country, with the intention to sell it on the darknet markets.
Nevertheless, before the U.S. Senate, Allen also revealed that a particular vulnerability, which occurs each time people exchange crypto coins for cash, can easily expose them.
Despite the anonymity or semi-anonymity of these virtual assets, when you make an exchange from crypto to fiat money, or vice versa, you become susceptible to identification by law enforcement means and methods.
Traditional law enforcement techniques such as undercover operations or surveillance are used for discovering criminal networks that operate on the dark web.
This only confirms the suspicion that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not as secure as they are portrayed to the public.
As a matter of fact, back in March this year, classified documents provided by Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency is able to locate senders and receivers of Bitcoin worldwide.
More Than Half of All Crypto Exchanges Are Not Secure
As a follow up to the previous matter, another report shows that roughly 54 percent of all cryptocurrency exchanges potentially have security flaws.
The research published by ICORating earlier this month, reveals that 32 percent of all exchanges have a code error and only 2 percent used registry lock.
In the past eight years, more than $1 billion has been stolen from crypto exchanges.
Back in August, the Brazilian exchange Atlas Quantum was the target of a major hack, endangering $30 million worth of assets and information of over 260,000 investors.
The personal data, including email addresses, account balances and phone numbers, were then leaked and posted for sale on the dark web.
Silk Road Admin Pleads Guilty
Gary Davis, one of the administrators of the now-defunct darknet market Silk Road, pleaded guilty last Friday on drug trafficking charges. He faces a maximum of 20 years of imprisonment.
According to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice, Davis is scheduled to be sentenced on January 17, 2019.
The 30-year-old Irish citizen, known by the alias "Libertas," was arrested in his country back in 2014, but was then extradited to the United States.
Silk Road, founded in 2011, served as a place where people could anonymously purchase and sell illicit drugs and other goods and services over the dark web.
The market appeared only two years after the creation of Bitcoin, which then served as the main currency for these illegal trades.
Despite its ultimate seizure by the FBI back in 2013 and the later life imprisonment of its founder, the market is credited with being the first to influence the boom of darknet markets around the world.
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That's it for our summary of this week's major crypto news headlines. This is the 15th post in our crypto news series. See previous installments here: