Crypto Crash Intensifies as Bitcoin Drops 10%
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, lost around 10% of its value on Friday after the panic among retail traders triggered a $100 billion sell-off in the crypto market. As of writing, BTC is trading near $45,500 with a total market cap of $850 billion.
The cryptocurrency market lost nearly $400 billion during the last 5 days. The total value of cryptocurrencies reached an all-time high of $1.75 trillion on Saturday after Bitcoin and Ethereum registered record highs. The crypto market reached a low of $1.37 trillion on Friday.
According to the latest data published by crypto analytics firm Bybt.com, around $900 million worth of long cryptocurrency positions got liquidated in the last 24 hours as Bitcoin and Ethereum lost nearly 10% of their values in a single day. Approximately 142,000 crypto traders were liquidated during the last 24 hours.
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Despite the positive news regarding the institutional adoption of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, the crypto market remained in a downtrend during the last 5 days. MicroStrategy, the world’s largest business intelligence firm, announced earlier this week that the company has purchased more than $1 billion worth of Bitcoin to increase its BTC holdings.
Market Correction?
Major institutional holders termed the recent downtrend as a healthy correction for the cryptocurrency market and an opportunity for new traders to enter the market but the high volatility and limited liquidity have raised concerns about the overall growth of digital assets. Bitcoin has now lost more than $200 billion of its market cap in the last few days. Bitcoin’s current market dominance stands at around 61.7%. Ethereum remained the worst-performing crypto-asset among the top 5 as ETH lost more than 25% of its value in the last 5 days. ETH crashed from a high of $2,020 to as low as $1,450 within this week. As of writing, the world’s second-largest crypto asset is hovering around $1,475 with a total market cap of $169 billion. Tether is the third-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $35 billion.
The estimated number of global crypto users has passed 100 million - and boomers are now getting drawn to bitcoin too, reports find
Bitcoin is drawing in users from all age groups, according to one financial firm’s survey of clients NurPhoto/Getty Images
Around 106 million people are now using cryptocurrencies around the world, Crypto.com estimated in a report.
deVere Group said its clients aged 55 and above are increasingly drawn to tokens like bitcoin.
The bitcoin price has soared this year and was up around 68% to $49,260 on Thursday morning.
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More than 100 million people around the world are now using cryptocurrencies - and a growing number of baby boomers and Gen Xers are becoming interested in bitcoin and other tokens, according to two separate reports.
A report from exchange Crypto.com estimated that there were 106 million crypto users around the world in January, following a 16% jump in participants last month alone.
A separate survey from financial advisory group deVere found 70% of its clients aged over 55 had already invested in digital currencies, or were planning to do so, in 2021, despite bitcoin and others being strongly associated with younger, millennial investors.
Crypto.com’s report said the surge in the price of bitcoin and other digital tokens had been a key driver of the increased interest in cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin touched an all-time high of more than $58,000 on Sunday, before tumbling briefly to $45,000 on Tuesday. Nonetheless, on Thursday morning the bitcoin (BTC) price was around 68% higher for the year at $49,260.
June and August in 2020 and January in 2021 were “exceptionally strong months” for increases in crypto users, according to Crypto.com research manager Kevin Wang.
“What we notice is that periods of strong growth come after periods of strong price performance in bitcoin.”
Crypto.com also cited a boom in Ethereum’s token ether and institutional cryptocurrency adoption by the likes of PayPal and MicroStrategy as driving interest.
Nigel Green, chief executive of deVere Group, said the firm’s internal poll of 688 clients showed that the recent boom in cryptocurrencies “has captured the attention of people around the world - and not just so-called digital native younger generations.”
Crypto.com’s figure of 106 million users was reached by analyzing data from the blockchains upon which cryptocurrencies are based, as well as data from surveys and exchanges.
The exchange said that a number of caveats applied to the research. They include difficulties in knowing whether on-chain users still own crypto and in capturing traders who do not transact, or use exchanges, which could mean the figure could vary in either direction.
Caveats also apply to deVere’s research, with an internal poll of clients unlikely to represent the baby boomer, or Gen X generations, as a whole.
Baby boomers are the generation born in roughly the 20 years after World War II, while Generation X is the generation born between roughly the early 1960s and early 1980s, according to common definitions.
Bitcoin cracks 19% to fall below $49,000 level as crypto rally falters
NEW DELHI: Cryptocurrencies extended losses on Wednesday, with Bitcoin cracking 19% to slip below the $49,000 level. The biggest cryptocurrency, in terms of market capitalisation, traded at $49,767, down 14.6% at around 1155pm, as per data available with WazirX.
Bitcoin had hit an all-time high of $58,332.36 last week.
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“Over the last 24 hours, crypto markets saw a bloodbath with all major cryptocurrencies taking a plunge. Bitcoin price dropped as much as 19% and is trading at $47,400 at the time of writing. Many analyst points towards an over-leveraged market as the primary cause for the price dip. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap faced a severe blow too after hitting its all-time high price of $2,000. It is currently trading at $1500. The gas fee on the Ethereum blockchain is also seeing a record high spike leading to a $25 million liquidation on DeFi platforms,” said Ashish Singhal, chief executive officer and co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber, cryptocurrency investment platform.
Decentralized finance or DeFi is an experimental form of finance that does not rely on common financial intermediaries such as brokers, exchanges, or banks to offer traditional financial instruments, and instead utilises smart contracts on blockchains. Ethereum is the most commonly used crypto for DeFi applications. A spike in transaction charges on Ethereum network tends to affect DeFi activity.
During the last 24 hours, Bitcoin hit a high of $51,413.61 and a low of $44,964.49, while Ethereum, the second-biggest cryptocurrency, hit a high of $1,655.63 and a low of $1,361.59.
Ethereum traded at $1,630.89 at around 1155pm, down 20% from its all-time high $2,036.55 mark. Stellar traded 18% lower at 0.41.
Meanwhile, regulatory opinion has hardened against cryptocurrencies in India.
“We have major concerns about cryptocurrency from a financial stability perspective,” Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das told news channel CNBC TV18 on Wednesday.
Last week, Bitcoin became the first digital currency in the world to hit a market valuation of $1 trillion. It took the crypto asset less than two months to reach this mark from $25,000 as of end of December.
Prices rose as several big corporates took exposure to bitcoin.
Currently, Bitcoin commands a market cap of $931.82 billion.
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