Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices deepened their weeks-long rout Wednesday as a spate of hacks and scam warnings compounded worries that regulators would crack downabout the nascent digital resources. 

The cost of Bitcoin crashed to well under $10,000, plunging to as small as about $9,200 down more than 50 percent from its highs a month ago.

Spooking investors was an announcement late Tuesday by Bitconnect, a popular but controversial site for lending and trading cryptocurrency, that it was shutting down operations. 

Bitconnect had lately been accused of running a Ponzi scheme--that the fiscal fraud most beautifully devoted by Bernie Madoff--by many influential investors, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and billionaire cryptocurrency investor Mike Novogratz. (The company didn't respond to the accusations.)

Some Bitconnect clients translated the sudden shutdown as confirmation of these suspicions, and feared they wouldn't be able to draw their money if the trade, whose management team remains anonymous, became bankrupt. 

Even though Bitconnect, whose very own digital token had risen to over $2 billion in market value as recently as last week, guaranteed that investors would be able to withdraw their funds in an average of the cryptocurrency's recent exchange rate, doubts persisted. 

Bitconnect's very own cryptocurrency quickly dropped up to 90% of its value.

For several days this week, Bitconnect stated it had come under a "continuous" cyberattack called a denial-of-service, depriving clients of the ability to withdraw money. After the shutdown statement, some users continued to report difficulties when they attempted to sell their positions. 

Now some Bitconnect investors, fearing they won't have the ability to collect, are lamenting on societal websites which they have lost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to their entire "household's savings."

Indeed, the abrupt halt of Bitconnect drew parallels to Mt. Gox, a major cryptocurrency exchange that appeared at 2014 after dropping virtually all of its Bitcoins--largely through a massive hack, but also through the alleged embezzlement and mismanagement of its CEO. 

The Mt. Gox fall precipitated a Bitcoin cost crash of more than 70%, vibration investors' confidence in the cryptocurrency for so long that it took Bitcoin over two years to recover.

While many cryptocurrencies have been in bear market territory since a correction which began in late December, this week has been particularly bloody for investors, together with the Bitcoin and Ethereum prices down almost 40% in the previous two days, and Ripple shedding almost half its value over the exact same period.

By late Wednesday afternoon, the Bitcoin cost had bounced back above $10,000 but nevertheless remained far below its peak of $20,000 a month ago.

Adding to the Bitconnect issues was a jolt of efforts by obvious visitors to take advantage of their confusion to deceive consumers into handing over the contents of the cryptocurrency wallets. On Twitter, reports that introduced themselves as Bitconnect customer support but appeared to have been set up following the service shut down, for example @BitconnectStaff and @BitConnectExch, appeared to prey on consumers desperate to get their cash off the platform by suggesting they send each of their cryptocurrency to a separate digital wallet address. 

Because such a trade could be irreversible and difficult, if not impossible, to follow, observers quickly realized that the trademark of a scam where the senders will probably be diverting their capital into the offenders, to not see them again.

In explaining its reasons for closing shop, Bitconnect cited the persistent cyberattacks it was experiencing along with "bad press" and "cease and desist" letters it received from two U.S. securities regulators. 

The threat of authorities cracking down on cryptocurrency trading was a major driver behind the continuing market selloff, with prices taking a dive following reports this week that authorities in China and South Korea were seeking to ban cryptocurrency exchanges.

Recorded Future, a cybersecurity firm, published an investigation Tuesday putting out evidence which North Korean hackers--the exact same group, known as Lazarus, blamed for the infamous hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment at 2014--were systematically targeting and plundering South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges.

Meanwhile, hackers used another method of attack last weekend to steal $400,000 worth of their cryptocurrency Lumens, used on the Stellar digital payment system, from an online wallet service named BlackWallet. The wallet service was offline since.