By Alun John

HONG KONG, (Reuters) – The stock market slump continued on Monday to hit cryptocurrencies. They are trading at the same level as tech stocks and other riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin fell to $33,266 during morning trading, breaking the February low of $32,951. If it falls below this level, that would mark the lowest Bitcoin price since July 2013.

The price of the stock then stabilized at $33,500. This was 1.4% lower.

Matt Dibb (COO) of Stack Funds, a crypto-platform based in Singapore, stated that “I believe everything within crypto can still be classified as a risk asset and similar to the Nasdaq. Most crypto currencies are getting pummelled.”

Tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.5% last week and is down 22% for the year. This was due to the possibility of inflation causing the U.S. Federal Reserve (US Federal Reserve) to raise rates in spite of slowing growth. Nasdaq futures fell another 0.8% Monday morning in Asia trade.

Dibb claimed that there were other reasons for the market decline over the weekend – bitcoin closed Friday at around $36,000 – such as the notoriously low liquidity in crypto markets over weekends and the short lived fear of USD (UST), losing its peg with the dollar.

Stablecoins can be described as digital tokens that are tied to traditional assets such as the U.S. dollars.

Due to the unique manner in which it keeps its $1 dollar peg as well as the fact that its founders set out plans for a $10 Billion reserve of Bitcoin to back its stablecoin, UST volatility could possibly spill into bitcoin markets.

On Monday, Ether (the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world and the one that underpins ethereum’s network) dropped to $2,421 – its lowest level since February.