Madrid/Hong Kong — Crypto-currencies continued to whipsaw investors, sending bitcoin to its lowest level since October before recovering, as worries over tighter regulation by US authorities and central bankers elsewhere gave traders fresh reasons to exit after a brutal start to 2018. The sell-off has now knocked about half a trillion dollars from digital coins since early January. That’s shaken a nascent market whose core attraction — anonymity and decentralisation — is being challenged by regulators as never before. The latest broadside came from Europe, where Bank for International Settlements GM Agustin Carstens said there’s a "strong case" for authorities to rein in digital currencies and that central banks — along with finance ministries, tax offices and financial market regulators — should police the "digital frontier". "Novel technology is not the same as better technology or better economics," Carstens said in a speech in Frankfurt. He said bitcoin may have been intended as...
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