Bitcoin prices on the Mt. Gox exchange have fallen 24% from Friday highs to below $900 after Baidu announced it would stop accepting Bitcoin for its music service users.

According to multiple reports, the Chinese search giant issued a statement saying:

Dear acceleration music users:

Due to the recent fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin larger unable to protect the interests of users, in response to the risk of state-controlled bitcoin spirit Baidu music accelerate decision to suspend with immediate effect from accepting bitcoin buy accelerate music services.

This follows the People's Bank of China's announcement that it would not allow banks to handle the virtual currency.

There is also speculation China Telecom has stopped accepting Bitcoin, although we couldn't confirm this.

China had been a huge driver of Bitcoin's growth last month and is now believed to account for the majority of Bitcoin trading.

Earlier, the Bank of France warned against using currencies not backed by central banks.

However, Bitcoin also seemingly stood to benefit from a fairly bullish outlook issued by Bank of America analyst David Woo.

Chart:

On ClarkMoody.com, a site that tracks the Mt. Gox exchange, prices fell as low as $800. The sell-off appears to have caused Mt. Gox to malfunction so we can't verify whether those prices are accurate.