Thursday, March 28

Bitcoin Price Drops Below $40,000

Bitcoin continues its price decline. The cryptocurrency was worth less than $40,000 on Monday, for the first time since September last year.

 

On Monday at about 4:10 p.m., bitcoin plunged more than 3 percent, to $39,559 on Luxembourgish trading platform Bitstamp. Compared to the beginning of this year, this is a decrease in value of 12 percent.

In November, Bitcoin was still at a record high of about $69,000. But it has been steadily declining since then, mainly prompted by the US central bank’s tighter monetary policy. It is expected to raise interest rates as early as March. As a result, shares and other risky investments such as cryptocurrencies are less popular.

In addition, the unrest in Kazakhstan also harmed the share price. This is because a lot of so-called ‘bitcoin miners’ are active there, and because the government shut down the internet, they were offline.

If it turns out Friday that inflation figures in the US are even worse than expected, bitcoin risks losing further ground, an analyst at broker GlobalBlock warns. Not everyone is equally pessimistic. Investment bank Goldman Sachs, for example, still sees a price potential of 100,000 dollars for bitcoin.

Other cryptocurrencies also took a hit on Monday. According to the portal Coinmarktcap, the total market is now worth less than USD 2 billion, to 1.86 billion.

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