Illustrative image of two commemorative bitcoins with a green background.
Arthur Vidak Nurfoto | Getty Images
Bitcoin briefly fell below $ 21,000 in Asia on Tuesday before rebounding slightly, continuing to collapse as investors sold off risky assets.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell nearly 14 percent in the past 24 hours, while Ethereum fell more than 12 percent over the same period, according to Coinbase.
Bitcoin was hovering around $ 21,800 on Tuesday in Asia.
“Right now, everything is on fire, be it stocks, whether it’s crypto assets or something else,” said Nirmal Ranga, head of trade and technical analysis at the ZebPay cryptocurrency exchange.
“What you see in the market is fear, uncertainty and doubt. “Technically, the markets look oversold and there must be some floor that we will reach in bitcoin in the near future,” he told CNBC Street Signs Asia.
Crypto assets were shattered on Monday as trading platforms such as Celsius and Binance stopped withdrawals and some companies cut jobs.
Celsius said withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts would be suspended due to “extreme market conditions” and that the move was aimed at “stabilizing liquidity and operations”.
“Today, we are taking this action to put Celsius in a better position to meet its withdrawal obligations over time,” the company said in a note.
Meanwhile, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, stopped withdrawing bitcoins for more than three hours “due to a blocked transaction causing delays.”
The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell below $ 1 trillion on Monday for the first time since February 2021, according to CoinMarketCap. About $ 200 billion has been wiped out of the market in recent days.
Read more about technology and crypto from CNBC Pro
The cryptocurrency sell-off comes as investors generally avoid risky assets amid fears of a potential global recession as major central banks around the world raise interest rates to curb inflation.
Politicians in the US Federal Reserve are now considering raising the interest rate by 75 basis points later this week, according to CNBC’s Steve Lisman. This is bigger than the 50 basis point increase that many traders expected. The Wall Street Journal was the first to tell the story.
Rising rates tend to make future returns on growth assets less attractive.
Bitcoin fell nearly 70% from its highest level in November 2021.
Add Comment