Moscow: Bitcoin’s price fell below the $40,000 threshold this week after crypto market prices plunged in the wake of the Russian central bank’s proposal to ban cryptocurrencies in the country.
A massive sell-off on Friday in the cryptocurrency market accelerated after the stock market closed on Wall Street. The selling seems to be feeding on itself, causing panic across the market.
Altcoins are down big today with some trading more than 30% lower, but the drops in giants like Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) are staggering. As of 5:45 p.m. ET, Bitcoin is down 10.8% in the last 24 hours and 5.4% in just the last hour and a half to $35,724. Ethereum is down 16.8% in the last day and 6.9% in the last 90 minutes to $2,512.
Cardano (CRYPTO:ADA) has also tumbled 13.4% in the last 24 hours while Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) is down a whopping 19.1%. Down the altcoin list, there’s rapid selling heading into the weekend.
Bitcoin’s decline since that November high has wiped out more than $600 billion in market value, and over $1 trillion has been lost from the aggregate crypto market. While there have been much larger percentage drawdowns for both Bitcoin and the aggregate market, this marks the second-largest ever decline in dollar terms for both, according to Bespoke Investment Group.
With the Fed’s intentions rocking both cryptocurrencies and stocks, a dominant theme has emerged in the digital-asset space: cryptos have twisted and turned in nearly exactly the same way as equities have.
Crypto-centric stocks also dropped on Friday, with Coinbase Global Inc. at one point losing nearly 16% and falling to its lowest level since its public debut in the spring of 2021, Bloomberg data show.
MicroStrategy Inc. tumbled 18% while the Securities and Exchange Commission said the company can’t strip out Bitcoin’s wild swings from the unofficial accounting measures it touts to investors. The enterprise software company’s pile of Bitcoin has effectively made its shares a proxy for the digital asset.
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