Bitcoin drops back below $30,000, heads toward new low for the year

The price of bitcoin dropped below $30,000 late Monday night for the first time since Jun. 22, dragging other digital coins lower with it. Bitcoin is trading in the $29,000 range, about 3% lower on the day, according to Coin Metrics. Ether is down 1.25% and XRP fell 4%. Even with the plunge bitcoin is up 2.3% for the year, according to CoinDesk data. Ether and XRP are both up about 140% for the year.

The plunge in bitcoin came after a big sell-off in global stock markets. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its worst day since last October. “There’s been a broad sell-off in global markets, risk assets are down across the board,” Annabelle Huang, partner at cryptocurrency financial services firm Amber Group, said.

There are “concerns of the quality and strength of economic recovery” and “broader risk assets turned weaker including high yields,” Huang said. “Coupled with recent BTC (bitcoin) weakness, this just sent crypto market down further.”

At one point early Tuesday, about $89 billion was wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market in a 24-hour period. Since bitcoin’s all-time high of nearly $65,000 in mid-April, its price has plunged over 50%. A renewed crackdown in China on cryptocurrency trading and mining has weighed on the bitcoin price.

Major regions responsible for bitcoin mining in China have forced operations to shut down. Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process that facilitates bitcoin transactions and creates new coins.

Bitcoin drops back below $30,000, heads toward new low for the year, CNBC, Jul 21