Bitcoin price drops lowest in five months; Ether plunges 9 % in last 24 hours
By Ishika Dangayach on Jan 21, 2022 | 03:31 AM IST
• The total cryptocurrency market lost $147 billion in the last 24 hours
• Bitcoin values have dropped roughly 40% from their all-time high
The world's largest cryptocurrency fell to $38,838.04, a 7.51 % drop in the previous 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.
Ether fell 9.06 % in the previous 24 hours to $2,857.33. The world's second-largest cryptocurrency has lost 13.5% in just one week.
The current cryptocurrency market downturn dragged Bitcoin to its lowest level in more than five months. Since its all-time high of about $69,000 in November of last year, the cryptocurrency token has lost roughly $1 trillion in value.
Read more: Bitcoin briefly drops below $40,000, lowest since September as investors shed risk
The cryptocurrency market fall was exacerbated by the US Federal Reserve's recent move to tighten monetary policy at a quicker rate than predicted.
Meanwhile Wall Street losses on Thursday. The Nasdaq is down about 5% this week, and the S&P 500 is down for the third week in a row.
Similarly, the price of Dogecoin plummeted 1% to $0.16, while Shiba Inu fell nearly 3% to $0.000027. Binance Coin was also down at $467.
Read more: Andreessen Horowitz to raise $4.5B new investments in crypto: FT
Meanwhile, Bitcoin's November high came after the US government revealed that US inflation was at a 30-year high, with consumer prices rising 6.2 %, forcing investors to seek inflation hedges such as digital assets and gold.
However, Bitcoin values have dropped roughly 40% from their all-time high.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs predicted that Bitcoin will snag away gold's market share in 2022 and might reach $100,000 as the digital currency gains traction.
Read more: Twitter rolls out new profile picture feature for NFT owners
Crypto Crackdown
Some analysts predict that the crypto sector will soon enter a bear market because of increased regulatory scrutiny and volatile price changes, which have lowered bitcoin's potential.
Cryptocurrencies are also being targeted by regulators. China has outlawed all cryptocurrency-related operations, and US authorities are also cracking down on specific areas of the business.
Read more: Seba CEO believes Bitcoin could rally to $75000 in 2022
The US Securities and Exchange Commission's crackdown on digital assets is expected to focus heavily on cryptocurrency exchanges in 2022.