The price of major cryptocurrencies plunged on Thursday with nearly $13 billion of value being wiped out in a matter of hours.

At around 10:23 a.m. HK/SIN, bitcoin had fallen nearly 5 percent to $6,303, while XRP and ethereum both tanked over 10 percent, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. It's not unusual to see bitcoin lead other digital tokens lower.

In just three hours, nearly $13 billion of value had been erased from the entire cryptocurrency market.

The drop comes amid fresh warnings from financial authorities about the rapid growth of digital coins and the potential threat to the economy.