Bitcoin (BTC) has crashed more than 10 per cent at the start of the week, falling below $25,000 for the first time since December 2020.
It is the latest in a series of price crashes for the cryptocurrency, which has seen it drop more than 60 per cent in value over the last seven months.
The overall crypto market also saw a significant tumble, losing more than $400 billion over the last week to take it below $1 trillion.
Several leading cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGE) experienced even heavier losses than bitcoin, falling by between 15-25 per cent in just 24 hours.
Not a single cryptocurrency in CoinMarketCap’s top 100 rankings saw any gains over the last day, making it one of the most comprehensive crashes in recent memory.
The market crash coincided with a similar capitulation of tech stocks in recent days, leading analysts to speculate that the two are reacting in tandem to external market forces.
“[Cryptocurrencies] have in the past not moved in step with traditional assets such as equities, however in recent times the link between the two has grown ever closer,” Simon Peters, an analyst at the online trading platform eToro, wrote in a note on Monday.
“Now the clearest signal yet that cryptoassets such as bitcoin and ether are moving in lockstep with equities has flashed, as inflation worries have sent stocks and crypto tumbling. The reasons for this are varied, but much of it comes down to institutional holders, which calibrate their risk assets in similar ways, be they tech stocks or bitcoin.”
Amid the liquidations, crypto lender Celsius told customers that they would be temporarily unable to withdraw funds from the platform.
“Due to extreme market conditions, today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts,” the company, which was valued at $3.25 billion during a funding round last year, wrote in a blog post on Monday morning.
“We are taking the necessary action for the benefit of our entire community in order to stabilise liquidity and operation while we take steps to preserve and protect assets.”
The move comes just a month after the collapse of Terraform Labs’ Luna and UST token, which wiped more than $40 billion from investors’ holdings.
