Major sell-off wipes $40 billion from cryptocurrency market

The entire market cap of cryptocurrencies has decreased by $40 billion in light of the recent sell-off that has seen Bitcoin slide from $10,500 to $8,830.

The dramatic move to the downside, which came to a crescendo on Wednesday evening as BTC crashed below $9,000, has invalidated the theory touting Bitcoin as a “safe haven asset” amidst a downturn in global markets.

While the slump in the price of cryptocurrencies has been devastating, it pales into insignificance when compared with the decline in stock markets.

Trillions of dollars has been wiped from global equity markets on the back of coronavirus-related fears, with it now spreading throughout mainland Europe.

Several cryptocurrency analysts have been scratching their heads wondering why Bitcoin failed to form a higher high when assets like gold continue to impress.

From a technical perspective the key moving average for Bitcoin to focus on is the daily 200 MA, which is currently at $8,775.

Wednesday’s daily candle closed below the moving average to demonstrate confirmation of a breakdown in price, although if it can bounce back this evening and close above the $8,830 region it may provide fuel for a surge back towards the $9,000 region.

It is also worth keeping tabs on the dailly 200 EMA at $8,600 as it provided Bitcoin with a bounce on two occasions yesterday.

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Cryptocurrency pricing

Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents:

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Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY

Euro – BTCtoEUR

Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD

Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB

About Bitcoin

In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are.

The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins.

More BTC news and information

If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started.

As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice.