Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices continued to decline on Tuesday, as Bitcoin extended its slide to a 2018 low of $4,500.

Bitcoin slumped 13% to $4,579.30 on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 8:31 AM ET (13:31 GMT), after falling as low as $4,411. The digital coin has lost about 75% of its value since its peak of almost $20,000 in December 2017.

The most recent drop came after several months of stability around the $6,500 range and reflects broader declines in global markets. The price of Bitcoin began to fall last week, after a hard fork in Bitcoin cash may have driven down demand for the virtual coin.

Cryptocurrencies overall were lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $145 billion at the time of writing, compared to a high of $800 billion in January.

Ethereum,or Ether, decreased 13% to $136.36 and Litecoin was at $33.381, down 11%, while XRP lost 5% to $0.45712.

In other news, the use of virtual coins as payment has fallen 80% in the year to September, Reuters reported, citing research from Chainanalysis.

A survey of 17 bitcoin payments processors, including Atlanta-based BitPay, found that even merchants that accept bitcoin use intermediaries to convert bitcoin into fiat currencies.

The findings are not welcome news to investors, as the popularity of alternative coins wanes and volatility returns to the market.

In other news, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced its first penalty against two crypto companies that did not register their initial coin offerings (ICO) as securities.

Airfox and Paragon Coin, will each have to pay penalties of $250,000 to compensate their investors.

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