China is one market to impose strict regulation that impacted prices. In February 2018, the country blocked its citizens from accessing websites that offer cryptocurrency trading services, prompting a 15% fall in Bitcoin and 20% plunge for Ether. Similarly, in January 2018, Bitcoin’s price was hit by new South Korean legislation requiring traders to reveal their identity.
If this type of extreme drop bothers you, you may have too much riding on your crypto investments. You should only invest what you’re OK losing. But even if the drop is making you rethink your crypto allocations, the same advice still stands — don’t act rashly or upend your strategy too quickly. Reconsider what you might be more comfortable with going forward, such as allocating less to crypto in the future or diversifying through crypto-related stocks and blockchain funds rather than directly buying crypto (though you should still expect volatility when cryptocurrency markets fluctuate).

Unlike the money you save in a bank insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), “If a virtual currency company fails – and many have – the government will not cover the loss,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned in a 2014 notice about cryptocurrency (its most recent guidance).
Dapps are software applications that run across a network of computers, purportedly without the possibility of interference or downtime, while smart contracts are binding agreements, which are written as lines of code and can therefore automatically enforce their own clauses. Ether is used to process transactions on the network, including those automated by dapps and smart contracts.