Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices traded lower on Monday in Asia following reports that Hong Kong would tighten regulations on digital coins.

Bitcoin slipped 0.6% to $3,263.9 and Ethereum also dropped 1.7% to $85.2 at 12:13 AM ET (05:13 GMT).

XRP slipped 1.32% to $0.28874, while Litecoin inched up 1.0% to $26.183.

Citing the Securities and Futures Commission’s guidelines, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the regulator would soon require local investment funds to obtain a license if more than 10% of the assets they manage are made up of cryptocurrencies. The funds can only sell related products to professional investors, according to the report.

Growing concerns over fraud and money laundering have prompted the regulator into action, SCMP said. The new regulations will be implemented in stages, it added.

“The requirements of the SFC initiative may prove too burdensome for some operators”, said Timothy Loh, who manages a law firm in the territory.

Last Friday, crypto prices slumped on reports that wash trading still dominates most Bitcoin trading volumes.

Fake trading makes up about 80% of the top 25 Bitcoin pairs by volume, a report from the Blockchain Transparency Institute found. Called wash trading, its a form of manipulation by which an investor both sells and buys to create misleading activity on the market.

“Most of these pairs actual volume is under 1% of their reported volume on [CoinMarketCap]. We noted only 2 out of the top 25 pairs not to be grossly wash trading their volume, Binance and Bitfinex,” the report said.

Bitcoin traded 4% lower on Friday on the news, while other major cryptocurrency prices slumped about 5%.

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