Ripple to record fourth weekly loss in row

Ripple slumped over 4%, or $0.03 on Friday on track for the fourth weekly decline in a row amid renewed government clampdown fears. 

As of 07:51 GMT, ripple tumbled 4.47% to $0.6009 from the opening of $0.62902, with an intraday low at $0.59301, and a high at $0.63382, with ripple's market value now amounting to $60.4 billion. 

US-Canada clampdown 

The US Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into cryptocurrency price manipulation ad governments around the globe ramp up efforts to combat fraud and illegal practices in the business. 

Bloomberg reported that the Commodity Futures Trading Committee (CFTC) is joining the investigation, which is focused on practices that might impact price movements, such as flooding the market with fake orders. 

Before that, US and Canadian authorities announced a shared campaign to investigate initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency investment plans, with the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) leading the combined effort. 

The NASAA has so far opened over 70 investigations into the matter and decided to close many illegal and unlicensed projects. 

India heaps pressure

In India, the supreme court decided to throw out all complaints against the latest crackdown by India's central bank on banks that provide cryptocurrency-related accounts. 

The Indian government is considering an 18% tax on crypto trading, which would weigh further on the struggling business there. 

Ripple was first launched on March 7, 2015, to start trading at $0.015, with the virtual currency losing nearly two thirds of its value by early 2016 to $0.0059, before rising 5% during 2016 to $0.0063, and then skyrocketing 28,000% to $1.748 by the end of 2017, before marking unprecedented highs in January at $3.30, then losing 85% of value rapidly in the last few months, and closing the first quarter of the year below $0.5.