Aug. 17 (NBD) -- The cryptocurrency market is in the midst of one of its biggest drawdowns ever.

According to Shulian index of Shared Finance, a blockchain-focused portal website, only 15 out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap saw a rise in prices, and most of the remaining experienced a drop of more than 30 percent. 

Cryptocurrencies have now lost about 600 billion U.S. dollars to 200 billion U.S. dollars since the mania peaked in January, according to feixiaohao.com, a platform dedicated to providing big data of the digital currency industry. 

The price of Bitcoin slid by 68 percent to 6,270 U.S. dollars Wednesday from 19,343 U.S. dollars in mid-December of 2017, says data from Coindesk, a leader in news, analysis and information on digital currencies. Bitcoin's market value now stands at 108.9 billion U.S. dollars, a sizable fall of 222 billion U.S. dollars since the end of last year. 

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Ethereum dropped to 296 U.S. dollars while Litecoin dived to 57 U.S. dollars Thursday, down 78 percent and 83 percent, respectively, from their last December high. 

Crytocurrency analyst Xiao Lei told NBD that the fluctuation of the U.S. dollar, growth of the global economy, and fears of inflation all imposed an impact on prices of cryptocurrencies. In addition, the launch of Bitcoin futures last year allowed short sellers to go short on cryptocurrencies. 

There is a bubble in the cryptocurrency market, Xiao explained. Due to the lack of massive application scenarios, people's understanding of the pricing of cryptocurrencies is still quite vague. At present, cryptocurrencies are mostly used for speculation. If the price couldn't go up in a period, people's confidence would be heavily affected, he added. 

Moreover, the dip in cryptocurrencies was bound up with changes of the overall economic environment. The interest rate increase of the Federal Reserve and shrinking global economic growth prompt many countries to protect their sovereign credits, even though cryptocurrencies have appealing features like decentralization and ability of combating inflation. 

It is also noticeable that a lot of cryptocurrencies are falling to zero. 

Of the 2,041 cryptocurrencies tracked by feixiaohao.com, 1,150 have dropped to below 0.1 yuan, with 447 even trading at less than 0.01 yuan. 

The bubble is too big, and many currencies were produced in volume, one industry insider said to NBD. 

Except for those boasting decentralization, such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, a large number of cryptocurrencies hit zero in 2014 and 2015. Analyst Xiao Le pointed out that only one percent of cryptocurrencies that have the same characteristics as securities can survive at last. Cryptocurrencies are underpinned by blockchain, but this doesn't mean all cryptocurrencies with blockchain as the underlying technology have real value.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn