Bitcoin price stabilizes following crypto plunge

Bitcoin hovered near the $40,000 down from its record $64,829

Bitcoin’s price stabilized Thursday, wavering between gains and losses.

The world's largest cryptocurrency flirted with the $40,000 level, according to Coindesk.

Traders in cryptocurrencies were licking their wounds following an extremely volatile day, suffering one of their biggest losses on Wednesday in the wake of China's decision to ban financial and payment institutions from providing digital currency services.

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Rival Ether was down more than 8% at $2,679 after falling 22.8% and Dogecoin was down more than 12% at $0.36.

BITCOIN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT'S AHEAD

The drastic drop in Cryptocurrencies began last week when Tesla announced it would not accept the digital currency as payment for cars, a reversal from an earlier announcement. The reason given was the potential environmental damage that can result from Bitcoin mining. 

Earlier this week Tesla CEO Elon Musk clarified the company had not sold any Bitcoin.

BARSTOOL'S PORTNOY SAYS HE ‘WISHES’ HE COULD MANIPULATE THE CRYPTO MARKET LIKE ELON MUSK

On Wednesday, Barstool Sports founder and CEO David Portnoy told Fox Business' "Varney & Co."  that he "wishes" he could manipulate the cryptocurrency market like Musk. 

"I wish I could do it to the degree that Elon does it," Portnoy told host Stuart Varney.

 "He [Musk] goes back and forth. I don’t do that," Portnoy said. "I wish I had his power." 

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Wednesday's slide reportedly forced some investors to close out leveraged positions in cryptocurrency derivatives. That caused prices to fall further, traders told Reuters.