Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices were lower on Thursday, as trading remained thin during the Thanksgiving holiday and French tobacconists plan to sell Bitcoin in stores next year.

Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD) fell 2.57% to $4,537.90 on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 7:40 AM ET (12:40 GMT), after falling as low as $4,411.00 during a steep decline on Tuesday.

Cryptocurrencies overall were lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $147 billion at the time of writing, compared to $150 billion on Wednesday.

Ethereum,or Ether, decreased 4.92% to $133.85 and Litecoin was at $33.510, down 1.27%, while XRP lost 1.76% to $0.44332.

Tobacco retailers in France will offer bitcoin vouchers starting Jan. 1, 2019. The project was created by French startup Keplerk and will enable clients to convert their vouchers into bitcoin and store it on wallets on its platform.

The startup has been trying to find a way to sell to retail investors for over a year and plans to charge a 7% commission fee on transactions.

The French central bank does not oversee the Keplerk initiative and warned investors against the potential risks of investing in digital coins.

“Those are purely speculative assets and not currencies. Those who invest in bitcoin or other crypto-assets do it at their own risk,” the Central Bank said in a statement on Wednesday.

In other news, Saudi Arabia is close to launching its own digital coin next year, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The project, which is being made with the United Arab Emirates, will be finalized by mid-2019, Mohsen Al Zahrani, head of innovation at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), the Kingdom’s central bank, told the agency.

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