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Bitcoin with price slide: The crypto currency has come under pressure again
Photo: JIM URQUHART / REUTERS
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin continued to slide over the weekend and is heading for its first monthly loss in more than 2 years. On Saturday, Bitcoin temporarily increased its price losses to 8 percent and at times fell well below the $ 35,500 mark on the Bitstamp trading platform. Bitcoin had previously crashed to $ 32,000 at times, but then recovered. Still, crypto investors fear that after falling below the $ 40,000 mark, Bitcoin could also test the $ 30,000 mark again shortly.
The Bitcoin boom is currently largely driven by the flow of money via the so-called stablecoin tether: Tether is the oil that keeps the crypto machinery running. But doubts are growing as to whether Tether is really, as the initiators claim, 100 percent covered by US dollars. The crypto market is currently facing the acid test: What happens if thousands of investors want to get out of the market at the same time when the price slides again? Market observers now refer to Tether as "counterfeit money".
Ethereum, the second most important cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, also fell by more than six percent.
"Bitcoin is still in a downward spiral," said analyst Timo Emden from Emden Research.
"The latest news from China has been a major drag on investors," said analyst Timo Emden from Emden Research.
China had scared investors off with the prospect of stricter regulation in the cryptocurrency sector.
If Bitcoin does not recover significantly by Monday evening, the cyber currency is threatened with its first monthly loss in more than two years.
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It wasn't until mid-April, just in time for the IPO of the US crypto exchange Coinbase, that Bitcoin reached a record high of around 68,000 US dollars.
Since then it has been steadily falling: Coinbase's market capitalization has also fallen sharply since the day of the IPO.
Since many crypto investors have invested in Bitcoin with borrowed money, this increases the pressure to sell in times of a price slide.
"The fluctuations in Bitcoin and Co are likely to remain extreme," said a stockbroker.
with agencies