Bitcoin falls below $13,000 – Australian banks freeze accounts linked to cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin falls below $13,000
Bitcoin opened at $14,427 today but has slid to $12,632 after a series of quick declines.

The drop leaves the crypto currency up 'just' 27% on the month after rising by more than 100% at one point.

A close here would be the lowest since Dec 6 and the chart is beginning to look like a head and shoulders top. If so, it would target something around $4000.

The drop is coming as Ripple diverges. It surged nearly 50% yesterday and the CEO of the cryptocurrency took a dig at Bitcoin. It's up another 8% today to $2.05.

As for Bitcoin, I'm not sure how much this is factoring into the price, but there are reports that Australian banks -- National Australia Bank, ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corporation -- have frozen transfers and customer accounts that have had interactions with CoinJar, CoinSpot, CoinBase and BTC Markets.

A spokesman from Commonwealth Bank seemed to confirm the freezes by saying that it's terms and conditions specifically ban Bitcoin.

They say the bank can refuse a transaction "because the destination account previously has been connected to a fraud or an attempted fraudulent transaction or is an account used to facilitate payments to Bitcoins or similar virtual currency payment services".

Coinspo said it was temporarily restricting all forms of AUD deposits as a result of difficulties with banks.