LONDON — The price of bitcoin fell below $20,000 for the first time since late 2020 on Saturday, in a fresh sign that the selloff in cryptocurrencies is deepening.
Bitcoin, the most widely used cryptocurrency, dropped to below the threshold of psychological importance, falling as much as 9 percent to $19,000 according to CoinDesk.
This was the last time Bitcoin was this high. It was November 2020. At that point, it was just a few months away from reaching its record of almost $69,000.
Bitcoin now has a loss of more than 70 per cent since its peak.
Ethereum, another widely followed cryptocurrency that’s been sliding in recent weeks, took a similar tumble on Saturday.
It’s the latest sign of turmoil in the cryptocurrency industry amid wider turbulence in financial markets. Central banks raising interest rates are causing investors to sell riskier assets in order to counter the rapid inflation.
A spate of crypto meltdowns have erased tens of billions of dollars of investors’ assets and sparked urgent calls to regulate the freewheeling industry.
Celsius Network’s cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network announced this month that it is halting all withdrawals, transfers and did not indicate when it will allow its 1.7million customers to access their funds.
Stablecoin Terra crashed last month. It erased billions in just hours.
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