The reason for the latest downward move has been pinned to the news that Twitter has followed Facebook's lead and banned advertising relating to cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs) from the platform.

The downtrend is also a reaction to Bitcoin failing to cross a key resistance level of $9,000 late last week.

All other tokens joined the slide, with Ethereum back under $500, a 45 percent decline on the year.

Litecoin's LitePay closes

It was also a bad day for Litecoin as the foundation behind it announced that Litepay – which is designed as a fast merchant payment processing system for Litecoin – would not be deployed as planned. It was scheduled to go into operation on February 26, which helped buoy the Litecoin price, but yesterday's news saw a 10 percent drop.

On Monday, the Litecoin Foundation posted on its website that LitePay CEO Kenneth Asare is now preparing to sell the company. Charlie Lee, Litecoin's founder, took to Twitter to apologise, saying "I am sorry for having hyped up this company and vow to do better due diligence in the future."

Coinbase holds off on new currencies amid regulatory fears

The biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the US is waiting until the regulatory framework is clearer before adding new coins, according to general manager Dan Romero.

The San Francisco-based exchange has been rumoured to be adding the likes of Ripple to its platform for more than six months, but is instead waiting to see what the country's regulators say on the question of whether cryptocurrencies are assets or securities. Coinbase isn't licensed to trade the latter.

"When we get to a point that we know which digital currencies and assets are securities, which ones are commodities, money or currency, it would be immensely helpful," Romero said.

"If the regulatory environment gets clearer, I think you will see Coinbase adding many new assets to our platform."