Led by Dogecoin, major cryptocurrencies were trading marginally lower on Friday. The meme token shed over 4%. Barring dollar-pegged tokens, only Binance Coin gained as much as 5% at 9.30 hours IST.

Crackdown on Binance is widening as Italian regulator Consob said Binance Group companies are not authorized to provide investment services and activities in Italy. The country's market watchdog said joining a string of global regulatory moves against the cryptocurrency exchange.




"The past 24 hours witnessed a massive sell-off across cryptocurrency markets. The 'crypto fear and greed index' tracks the sentiment across the crypto markets. It showed that extreme fear prevailed across the spectrum," said Edul Patel, CEO, and Co-founder of Mudrex.

"Most of the cryptos were under severe selling pressure. Traded volumes shot up, and prices tanked. Although BTC managed to stay afloat above the $31,000 mark, altcoins faced the wrath of the bears," he added.

Besides this, China's share of global Bitcoin production power fell sharply even before a recent crackdown by authorities on cryptocurrency mining, research by the University of Cambridge showed.

China has long been the center of global cryptocurrency mining, an energy-intensive process. Many Bitcoin miners in China use fossil fuels, including coal, stoking concerns over Bitcoin's environmental footprint.