Bitcoin appears to be moving into a new period of price discovery.

Following a new ruling that finds China’s regulators moving to outlaw initial coin offerings (sales of new cryptographic tokens often exchanged for bitcoin), the bitcoin price fell to its lowest total since August 22 today.

At press time, bitcoin had declined to just above $4,000 – halting at $4,037.50 across global exchanges – a 20% decline from its all-time high of $5,013 observed on September 1.

Of the exchanges tracked in the BPI, just one was trading below $4,000 at the time of the report, with China-based OKCoin displaying a $3,969 price. (Paxos’s itBit exchange, Coinbase’s GDAX exchange and Bitstamp were all trading above $4,000).

Still, as reported by CoinDesk, the move below $4,100 on most major exchanges could be significant, potentially foretelling a bigger move down to $3,769 should the price obey Fibonacci patterns.

The drop comes at a time when the total value of all publicly issued cryptocurrencies has seen a similar decline, dropping from a high of $179 billion to $145 billion today.

In total, the market is now down nearly 19 percent from its all-time high.

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.

Coin in water image via Shutterstock