Crypto Today: Bitcoin retraces portion of daily losses, stays below $15K

• Bitcoin remains on track to close fourth straight day lower.
• Ripple drops below $2.
• Etherum rises to a fresh all-time high above $1400.

The BTC/USD pair slumped to a fresh weekly low on Wednesday on reports of the PBOC taking action to ban mining activities in the country. According to China Daily, in a closed-door meeting last week,  the PBOC made a decision to tell local governments to oversee an "orderly exit" of cryptocurrency miners. After dropping to $13,600, the BTC/USD pair staged a technical correction in the NA session but failed to break above the $15K mark. According to the latest available data on coinmarketcap.com, the pair was trading at $14,524.50 losing nearly 3% on the day.

Meanwhile, Ripple suffered heavy losses for the third straight day as the dropping market cap suggested that investors were moving away from the cryptocurrency. Ripple's market cap, which increased to $140 billion during the rally to the record high of $3.85 on the first week of January, is now around $77 billion while the XRP/USD is trading at $1.98, losing 12.5% on the day.

On the other hand, with the demand shifting to Ethereum, which is a currency with a broader usage, surged to a fresh all-time high at $1414 before retracing a portion of its daily losses amid profit-taking. As of writing, the ETH/USD pair is up 5.3% at $1,297.69.