Bitcoin Price Extends Decline to Below $19,000 in Record-Breaking Rout
Bitcoin price plunged below $19,000 for the first time since December 2020 as evidence of deepening stress within the crypto industry keeps piling up against a backdrop of monetary tightening.
The largest digital token by market value tumbled as much as 11% to $18,334 on Saturday, marking a record-breaking 12th consecutive daily decline according to Bloomberg data. Ether breached $1,000 and dropped almost 13% to $951, the lowest since January 2021. The two bellwethers of the crypto market are both down more than 70% from all-time highs set in early November.
“What we’re seeing is more liquidations driving prices and sentiment lower, which triggers more liquidations and negative sentiment -- some flushing-out needed still, but this will at some stage exhaust itself,” said Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis, one of the largest and best-known lenders in the digital-assets space.
The latest leg down pushed Bitcoin below $19,511, the high the coin hit during its last bull cycle in 2017, which it reached at the end of that year. Throughout its roughly 12-year trading history, Bitcoin has never dropped below previous cycle peaks.
Altcoins were no exception to soured investor appetite in the wake of Bitcoin’s fall, with every token on Bloomberg’s cryptocurrency monitor trading in the red. Cardano, Solana, Dogecoin and Polkadot recorded 24-hour falls of between 9% and 12% on Saturday, while privacy tokens such as Monero and Zcash lost as much as 11%.
A toxic mix of bad news cycles and higher interest rates has been deleterious to riskier assets like crypto. The Federal Reserve raised its main interest rate on June 15 by three-quarters of a percentage point -- the biggest increase since 1994 -- and central bankers
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