Dec 4 (Reuters) - Bitcoin shed a fifth of its value on Saturday as a combination of profit-taking and macro-economic concerns triggered nearly a billion dollars worth of selling across cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin was 12% down at 0920 GMT at $47,495. It fell as low as $41,967.5 during the session, taking total losses for the day to 22%.
The broad selloff in cryptocurrencies also saw ether , the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, plunge more than 10%.
Based on cryptocurrency data platform Coingecko, the market capitalisation of the 11,392 coins it tracks dropped nearly 15% to $2.34 trillion. That value had briefly crossed $3 trillion last month, when bitcoin hit a record $69,000.
The plunge follows a volatile week for financial markets. Global equities and benchmark U.S. bond yields tumbled on Friday after data showed U.S. job growth slowed in November and the Omicron variant of the coronavirus kept investors on edge. read more
Justin d'Anethan, Hong Kong-based head of exchange sales at cryptocurrency exchange EQONEX, said he had been watching the increase in leverage ratios across the cryptocurrency markets as well how large holders had been moving their coins from wallets to exchanges. The latter is usually a sign of intent to sell.
"Whales in the crypto space seem to have transferred coins to trading venue, taken advantage of a bullish bias and leverage from retail traders, to then push prices down," he said.
The selloff also comes ahead of testimony by executives from eight major cryptocurrency firms, including Coinbase Global (COIN.O) CFO Alesia Haas and FTX Trading CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Dec. 8. read more
The hearing marks the first time major players in the crypto markets will testify before U.S. lawmakers, as policymakers grapple with the implications of cryptocurrencies and how to best regulate them.
Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected a second spot-bitcoin exchange-traded fund proposal from WisdomTree.
Data from another platform Coinglass showed nearly $1 billion worth of cryptocurrencies had been liquidated over the past 24 hours, with the bulk being on digital exchange Bitfinex.
"If anything, this is the opportunity to buy the dip for many investors who might have previously felt like they missed the boat. We can see tether bought at a premium, suggesting people are getting cash ready, within the crypto space, to do just that," D'Anethan said, referring to the biggest stablecoin in the cryptocurrency world.
A plunge in bitcoin funding rates -- the cost of holding bitcoin via perpetual futures which peaked at 0.06% in October -- also showed traders had turned bearish.
The funding rate on cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX fell to a negative 0.18% from levels of 0.01% for most of November.
Crypto currency, the currency where the value of it decreases as its used.
:pain:
Me Shitposting a Comment: "Turning a speculative asset into something that I can spend to pay bills, but calling it a currency."
Me Not Shiposting a Comment: "But, yeah, I get it."
The tech bro equivalent of Bernie Bros: “It’s spendable if you accept it!”
Here ya go, you left this here.
pulls knife from my chest and hands it back to you
:flattened-bernie:
I'd love to say "crypto taking Ls" but this is just going to allow those with a lot of money to buy a whole lot and then it'll go up again
40% and falling.
Still, not a terrible investment if you didn't buy in six months ago. But, like, Etherium is up 500% for the year by comparison.
Should be noted that Etherium is what backs NFTs. Bitcoin can't even do that much.
Bitcoin and Bitfinex/Tether are the backbone of all crypto. Ethereum is in lockstep with BTC basically.
If you look at the Ethereum price, it also took a 20% dip today before recovering
Hilarious considering Bitfinex/Tether have no actual USD to back their "stablecoin" so when people inevitably panic and try to sell their USDT this will go from "Massive loss of value in crypto exchanges" to "millions of pretend dollars stolen as real dollars when shady company freezes all customers' accounts and takes 30% of everyone's wallet like it did before"
A pyramid scheme that's run on Looney Tunes "don't look down" principles
It's holding it's base better than Bitcoin.
And while I also listen to TrueAnon, I think we're running into a relative utility issue at last. Tether might be propping up the value of crypto as a whole, but it seems the grift-energy is shifting.
It's classic ForEx market manipulation. You see it all the time in crypto because the big players know that a huge part of the market is retail gamblers playing with leverage. They can easily smoke out the lil guys playing at 5-10x with a quick 10% down candle that spikes to 15 or 20% down. This recent crash literally happened at 2am during some drunkfest in Miami, like clockwork.
You see, money is real, and countries can't just print or destroy money whenever they want. Value can just be destroyed by people getting scared, though, which is normal, but spending an extra 1T on the welfare and health of people can't be done because where will the money come from?
Money isn't real because they can just make more, but Bitcoin is very real, because I have to burn several barrels of oil whenever I use it to prove it's real.
We can see tether bought at a premium suggesting people are getting cash ready
This means people are jumping ship into a "stable" coin lol, if anything tether being inflated (when it shouldn't) is a snapshot of how anxious the market is.
"A massive collapse in the stock market followed by a massive rise in 10-year bonds indicates the market is ready to recover" - some guy in 1929 probably.
Tether doesn't have any banking relationships either though, and none of these "stable coins" actually have cash reserves even close to what they'd need to back their market value.
The whole point of tether is that it's (allegedly) backed by the dollar though. That's why it's called a stable coin in the first place. The only reason it's used as a root currency is because it's supposed to be a crypto stand in for the dollar which can be exchanged at any moment, but because they just print infinite money and it inflates massively in value they can't fulfill their end of the bargain. Also all an attestation is is an accounting firm looking in a company's records at a specific time and seeing what their numbers say. At that time USDC did appear to be backed by assets but it's because the company transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in assets from unknown sources into the company's funds shortly before the attestation without disclosing.
I think you’re thinking of Tether, which did that for their bullshit audit
I am indeed thinking of Tether, whoops. Regardless, using a worthless currency as the basis for a "legitimate" exchange is at the very least foolish if not extremely malicious.
They are, most of the "action" is people playing with leverage which makes it easy for whales to constantly do pump and dumps without actually "dumping" long term.
It seems very good and healthy for your “currency” that’s going to save humanity or whatever to have roughly the same volatility of that of a failing country.
People who cluck about prices going down are just as cringe as people who cluck about prices going up, IMO
I've been hating on Bitcoin since it was around $3000, I will not be happy until it hits 0
What if I laugh at only the line go down :stonks-down: ?
If you’re not a political dissident exchanging cash for crypto in a location with no cameras, there is never a good time to buy crypto
Dear pedophile gamer/billionaires, buy your crypto from me. I will give you a very good deal I swear. My crypto store is right next to this big pit
Depends, how much deeper do you think the pyramid scheme can go once you get in?
It depends on whether Americans care about children dying of covid like they care about children getting shot
If you're considering buying, I suggest only putting money you're willing to lose, nobody knows if it will continue to fall or if it will bounce back.
Lol I noticed this on that little Bitcoin tab on cash app last night
Crypto is stupid but it's largely displacing gold as an inflation hedge since gold is arguably a stupider inflation hedge (look up the correlation between gold and bitcoin prices) and also more and more institutions are going to depend on it as an inflation hedge so buy the dip mother fuckers
