#Bitcoin tanks back below $60,000 as cryptos tumble

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies nosedived Tuesday morning after notching new all-time highs in recent days.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, fell back below the key $60,000 per coin level at one point Tuesday morning. It was last seen trading at $60,250 per coin, down more than 8 percent over the past 24 hours.

The second-largest crypto, ether, was down almost 10 percent from a day earlier, trading at about $4,250 per coin.

Binance coin, solana and cardano were all also down 8 percent, 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

And the turn downward applied to nearly all cryptos, including smaller so-called altcoins.

The overall value of the total crypto market fell almost 9 percent, or $233.4 billion, in just 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

The latest pare back came after China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, said Tuesday that it will continue to restrict and regulate cryptocurrency mining in the country.

Beijing and Communist Party officials already announced earlier this year a major crack down on bitcoin mining in China — which was then home to most miners — spurring a mass exodus.

Crypto mining has stoked controversy in China and even across the US — including in New York state — because of how much power it uses, with some environmentalists arguing that the surge in demand for energy will have the industry turning to non-renewable sources of power that have long fallen out of favor.

Crypto mining in China is still a major source of carbon emissions, NDRC spokesperson Meng Wei said Tuesday in Mandarin.

Meng went on to describe the industry as “blind and disorderly” and said the NDRC — the nation’s top economic planner — said it will crack down on state-owned companies that are involved in cryptocurrency mining.

China will also begin imposing higher electricity prices on companies or actors involved in crypto mining who are tapping into residential supplies of electricity, Meng said.

The announcement comes just days after China began to show some teeth behind its recent harsh words for the crypto sector.

Over the weekend, China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection — and with the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, a high-ranking group in the party — expelled a powerful communist party member for letting cryptocurrency mining happen on his watch.

The commission announced Saturday that Xiao Yi, a former vice chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Political Consultative Conference, was stripped of his post and expelled from public office.

He allegedly accepted payments and gifts that could have influenced his policy decisions and knowingly allowed illegal crypto mining to happen, among other party violations.