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(Previous) highlight of the hype:
Bitcoin advertising in New York's Times Square for the IPO of the crypto platform Coinbase on April 14th.
Since peaking at around $ 65,000, Bitcoin has now lost around 25 percent of its value
Photo: John Angelillo / imago images / UPI Photo
Bitcoin price slump: The planned increase in capital gains taxes in the US triggers a sell-off in cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin fell a good 6 percent on Friday to a seven-week low of $ 48,357, the price falling below $ 50,000 for the first time since the beginning of March.
The number two cyber currency, Ethereum, lost a good 12 percent to $ 2,115.
On Thursday it had reached a record high of $ 2,645.75.
According to insiders, US President Joe Biden plans to roughly double capital gains taxes.
Stockbrokers fear that this will reduce the attractiveness of cryptocurrencies as an investment.
Some funds had responded to the news with aggressive sales, said Avi Felman, chief trader at cryptocurrency specialist Blocktower.
In Germany, the taxation of crypto profits is legally controversial.
The Federal Ministry of Finance announced to the manager magazin that it would soon be clarified to the tax offices.
In the case of Ethereum in particular, the price losses are to a not inconsiderable extent a reaction to previous price gains, said Chris Weston, chief analyst at the brokerage house Pepperstone.
"It has developed well above average compared to Bitcoin."
Since the beginning of the year, Ethereum has grown almost 230 percent, almost four times as strong as Bitcoin.
In the same period, the MSCI world share index only rose by just under 5 percent.
A quarter price loss since mid-April
Bitcoin has been under pressure for a few days, including reports of tougher US crackdown on the use of digital currencies in money laundering.
Since the record high of just under $ 65,000 reached in mid-April, the minus adds up to almost a quarter.
Despite the recent losses, Bitcoin is still clearly in positive territory in the medium and long term.
Since the end of 2020, the increase has been 70 percent.
Over the year, the plus is more than 500 percent and in the past five years the price has increased by more than 10,000 percent.
For some time, however, a shift from Bitcoin to other Internet currencies such as Ether, Binance, Tether, XRP or Dogecoin has been observed among the many cryptocurrencies.
According to a list by Coinmarketcap.com, Bitcoin's share of digital currencies, measured by market capitalization, is only a little more than 50 percent.
At the beginning of the year it was almost 70 percent.
ak / Reuters, DPA