Bitcoin prices tumble 50% from peak and Mark Cuban calls the crypto crash the ‘great unwind’

Ether on the Ethereum blockchain ETHUSD, -26.27%, meanwhile, was seeing an even more severe slump, down 18% at $1,922 on the session and down by nearly 60% from its all-time high hit earlier this month at $4,382.73.

The weekend carnage in crypto was drawing the attention of bulls and market participants, including billionaire Mark Cuban, who appeared to partly pin the slump on excess leverage and speculation on alternatives to bitcoin.

Popular meme asset, dogecoin DOGEUSD, -27.38%, was changing hands at 29 cents, down 60% from its all-time high at around 74.07 earlier this month.

The slide for crypto extends a drop that has taken hold over the past several days, underlined by fears of irrational exuberance in parts of the digital-asset market and concerns about intensifying regulation on the nascent sector.

Read: Why is crypto crashing? Will bitcoin prices ever recover? Here’s what traders and investors say

China on Friday underscored its intent to crack down on digital assets and the U.S. Treasury Department said it planned to enforce anti-money-laundering rules and request that crypto transactions of $10,000 be reported to the government.

One popular measure of anxieties in the crypto market, the fear and greed index was at 14, indicating extreme fear, after touching a level of greed last month at 55.

Unease festering in digital assets may also bleed over in to stocks too, with equity benchmarks, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.36%, the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.08% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.48%, seeing choppy trade in recent action.