Following the government's announcement heralding a shutdown of digital exchanges in South Korea, the price of bitcoin trading in the country-- at one point-- plummeted from 20 million won per coin to below 18 million.

The flurry of panic caused the global Bitcoin price to drop by 4 percent from the night before, to roughly 13-thousand dollars.

As of 4 p.m. Korea time, the local price for Bitcoin stands at 18-thousand-409 won.