Markets
Bitcoin Stumbles as Mt. Gox and German Government Stir Doubt
Top line
Bitcoin’s price fell to a four-month low on Monday, resuming a multi-week slide in the cryptocurrency that saw prices of other major tokens fall amid uncertainty over impending sales by the German government and creditors of failed cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox.
Bitcoin prices fell again on Monday.
AFP via Getty Images
Highlights
Bitcoin’s price fell more than 6% early Monday morning before paring its losses to trade around $55,500 as of 3:15 a.m. EST, still down 4% from the same time the previous day.
It’s the lowest price for the world’s largest digital asset in months and a drop of about $18,000 from an all-time high of just under $74,000 in March, a loss of about a fifth.
Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin, followed a similar trajectory, sliding more than 7% before recovering to trade around $2,900 as of 3:15 a.m. ET, down 4% on the day.
The same path was also followed by Binance’s BNB, Solana, Ripple’s XRP, Dogecoin and Cardano’s Ada — the next largest cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins pegged to traditional currencies like Tether and USDC — with falls of between 9% and 11% echoing losses of between 2.5% and 7% as of 3:15 a.m.
Overall, the total cryptocurrency walk had lost about $20 billion in value in one day as of 3 a.m. EST, down about 2% from the previous day.
Why is Bitcoin falling and the cryptocurrency market crashing?
Bitcoin’s drop on Monday threatens to continue a string of weeks of dismal decline for the popular cryptocurrency, which has been sliding since March’s record highs. decreasing interest in cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs), uncertainty over Monetary Policy and fears Tokyo crypto exchange will go bankrupt Mount Gox could cause a crash if it keeps its promise of repay creditorsThe exchange was once one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency platforms, but filed for bankruptcy a decade ago after hackers stole Most of its crypto assets between 2011 and 2014. Bitcoin is trading about 10 times more expensive on Monday than when the exchange declared bankruptcy, and today, bitcoin is reportedly worth more than $58 billion, according to CNBC. The exchange managed to recover some of the funds after filing bankruptcy, with tokens worth about $9 billion today, and markets have reacted to what is expected to be a massive selloff in bitcoin, with creditors cashing out at a much higher price than when they lost the crypto tokens. Bitcoin accounts for more than half of the total value of the cryptocurrency market, and its fortunes tend to be mirrored by the market as a whole and smaller crypto tokens.
Tangent
Mt. Gox Is Not the Only Factor Behind the Cryptocurrency Market Crash, and So Is the German Government make waves by hastily selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin for fiat currency. Berlin sent its cryptocurrency reserves to Exchanges like Coinbase, Bitstamp and Kraken since June, as the European government dumps and liquidates its assets grasped from various criminal groups. These transfers have increased concerns about massive sales in the market and, according to According to Arkham Intelligence, Germany still holds around $2.2 billion worth of Bitcoin.
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