Dutch minister again preaches caution after wild cryptocurrency weekend

Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Finance warned Dutch investors about the risks involved in trading in Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. The price of the largest cryptocurrencies plummeted last week.

"I think we've said before: think before you start. It's a product that carries great risks, and that has also be seen in the last 12 to 24 hours", Hoekstra said to RTL Z on Friday, referring specifically to Bitcoin. "It goes up very fast and down very hard, and I think the DNB and AFM also previously warned about the big risks that people take when they step into this product."

The top five cryptocurrencies by market capitalization showed significant drops of between 17 and 30 percent in the last week. Those five are: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple. At 9:20 a.m. on Monday, Bitcoin stood at $14,034.60. 

Last week the Finance Ministers of France and Germany called for the world's top economic powers to debate Bitcoin and cryptocurrency regulation at the G20 summit in Argentina next year.