In a new round of declines for bitcoin the popular cryptocurrency tumbled 8 percent over a 24-hour period leading up to Friday December 7 morning The digital currency was trading at just over 3 375 as of 8 40 am EST CNBC reported A few hours later as of 11 21 am the cryptocurrency was trading a bit lower at 3 23557 according to Coindesk And beyond bitcoin other major digital currencies also fell over the same day-long timeframe Ether for instance fell roughly 15 percent as XRP dropped by about 10 percent Ether was trading at 8319 and XRP at 29 cents per Coindesk as of 11 21 am EST Kapronasia Director Zennon Kapron told CNBC of the move The market is in a general bearish trend that doesnt seem to be letting up driven by what seems to be a general negative sentiment towards crypto As the market is heavily retail driven its very much at the mercy of group sentiment which causes huge swings The executive noted that the trend could carry well into next year if there arent any positive drivers in the near future Bitcoin marked the start of the month with another drop in value that time by 8 percent according to a prior CNBC report That came after a 37 percent drop in November which took about 70 billion off bitcoins market value Only about a year ago the popular cryptocurrency was on the rise to its peak at 20 000 In December it was up 40 percent as a large number of retail investors bought the digital currency At the same time it was noted in November that 24-hour trading volumes are down 56 percent since the start of the year and the whole cryptocurrency market has dropped 80 percent XRP the second-largest cryptocurrency fell 5 percent and Ether fell 8 percent Part of the reason for the fall was the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC crackdowns which settled with two crypto firms in November and gave them civil penalties LATEST INSIGHTS Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation thats reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem Check out the latest PYMNTS report on driving gas pump payments to the C-Store