Bitcoin loses $2,000 in 6 hours, sending the price to $21,000
Nickie Louise
Posted On August 19, 2022
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Bitcoin suddenly lost 6% of its value in under six hours as the crypto market drop sends the price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency to a little over $21,000, a more than three-week low. At 9:40 a.m. EST, Bitcoin plunged from $22,738 to below $21,500, according to CoinMarketCap data. It’s now trading at $21,414 at the time of writing.
Many crypto investors and enthusiasts were hoping the current rally would carry bitcoin to the $30,000 mark. Unfortunately, a sudden crypto sell-off in early European trading caused bitcoin to dip below the $22,000 level. Earlier in the morning, Bitcoin fluctuated between $21,500 and $22,000.
Bitcoin is not alone. Binance Coin, Cardano, and Solana also fell by a few percentage points. Ether fell from $1,808 to $1,728 during the same period before staging a minor rebound. Ether plunged again, falling further to $1,693.90 by 9:40 a.m. ET.
It was not immediately clear what caused the sudden collapse. The latest price drop comes about two weeks after the world’s most popular cryptocurrency eclipsed $25,000 for the first time since June.
In an interview with CNBC this morning, Simon Peters, crypto market analyst at eToro said, “US equity markets have pulled back since Wednesday’s release of the July Fed meeting minutes, the key takeaway being that the Fed likely won’t be finished with rate hikes until inflation is tamed across the board, with no guidance offered on future rate increases either.”
Peters also added, “With the tight correlation between US equities and crypto in recent months I suspect this has filtered through to crypto markets and it’s why we are seeing the sell-off. The trend has also perhaps been exacerbated by liquidation of long positions on bitcoin perpetual futures markets.”
