The world’s largest digital token fell as much as 3.9% to $29,764 in Asia before paring the slide
Bitcoin dropped below $30,000 on Tuesday for the first time since July 2021, bringing its decline from a November record high to about 55% amid a global flight from riskier investments.
The world’s largest digital token fell as much as 3.9% to $29,764 in Asia before paring the slide. It was trading at $30,850 as of 11.28 am in Singapore. Ether, the second biggest token, recovered sufficiently to eke out a small gain. Other coins like Solana and Avalanche remained in the red.
We’re seeing a slow-motion meltdown, partially because it’s mostly been long holders selling instead of levered liquidations, said Josh Lim, the head of derivatives at New York-based brokerage Genesis Global Trading. Now that some corporate treasuries are hovering near their cost basis, markets are waiting and watching to see if shareholders will force some de-risking.
The crypto swoon comes as tightening monetary policy to combat runaway inflation curbs liquidity, turning investors away from speculative assets.
Michael Novogratz, the billionaire cryptocurrency investor who leads Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd, warned that he expects things to get worse before they get better.
Crypto probably trades correlated to the Nasdaq until we hit a new equilibrium, Novogratz said on Galaxy’s first-quarter earnings call on Monday. My instinct is there’s some more damage to be done, and that will trade in a very choppy, volatile and difficult market for at least the next few quarters before people are getting some sense that we’re at an equilibrium.
The crypto market is also monitoring TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin that aims to maintain a one-to-one peg to the dollar. The peg appeared to fray, with the token’s value falling below 70 US cents on Tuesday, according to CoinGecko data.
