All but one of the top ten cryptocurrencies have lost between three percent and 12 percent of their value in the past 24 hours.
On Wednesday, Bitcoin was down over $100, representing approximately a six percent loss, with Ethereum posting similar results. Monero was 10 percent lower and Dash four percent.
In addition, on Tuesday, Wikileaks published the first volume of its bulk data project relating to US spying practices, which implicate consumer electronic devices such as smartphones worldwide.
While it is difficult to attribute the sudden slump to any particular factor, the news of the vulnerability of consumer devices is likewise a timely reminder of the vulnerability of cryptocurrency funds accessed on such devices.
Prior to the leak, John McAfee notably warned at a Blockchain Money conference in London last November that passwords for wallets accessed on smartphones could be cracked in “five minutes.”
"Some people have hundreds of thousands of dollars on their smartphone wallet. And I tell them – if you give me your phone number, in five minutes I will transfer all of your Bitcoins into my account," he said.
According to Wikileaks’ data, it has now come to light that any user interaction with their device can be logged and subsequently used by the CIA.
Meanwhile, only Ripple posted a decidedly steep 6.5 percent climb Tuesday, the de facto centralized protocol seemingly going against the trend.