Cryptocurrencies took a hit on Monday as protests against COVID restrictions in China affected markets.

According to Arabia Net, Bitcoin fell during the trading session by 3.2%, and was trading at about $16,170 as of 12:40 pm in Tokyo.

Ether fell about 4%, while coins such as Solana, Avalanche and Dodgecoin incurred larger losses.

The value of the total losses in the cryptocurrency market during the past 24 hours amounted to about $ 45.44 billion, which represents an increase of 29.10%, in the volume of losses from the previous day, according to what I looked at Al Arabiya Net, on the coinmarketcap website.

The turmoil fueled by China comes during a period of weakness for cryptocurrency markets, which are on edge due to contagion from the fall of Sam Bankman Fried's FTX exchange and Alameda Research subsidiary.

The drop in crypto assets came on Monday, amid declines in Asian stocks and US stock futures. Katrina Ell, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV that Beijing's ongoing zero-Covid policy is an obstacle to stabilizing domestic demand.

Hayden Hughes, CEO of social trading platform Alpha Impact, said markets may also be concerned that unrest in China will lead to more supply chain constraints globally. Such crises can make it harder to beat inflation, which makes interest rates higher.

Bitcoin is down about 21% so far in November, its worst monthly performance since June, according to Bloomberg.

And the collapse of FTX - which previously boasted a valuation of $32 billion - continues to threaten a broader crypto-asset sector.