Bitcoin, Ethereum See Price Plunge as Major Digital Currencies Lose Some Ground

A few days after hitting new all-time highs, Bitcoin and Ethereum are pulling other cryptos down as the market is experiencing significant price reductions.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and other altcoins fell by a steep margin on Tuesday after almost touching near-record highs. During the late morning trading session – using Singaporean time, BTC was changing hands at $60K representing a 7% plunge. However, the asset rose just a bit and was up to $60,600 a few hours later. Overall, this represented an 8% dip from the day before. BTC’s current market cap now stands at $1.146 trillion.

Meanwhile, ETH, the second-largest crypto by market cap, was down by approximately 8% to $4,310.96. On the other hand, Dogecoin was down 6.36% to $0.2447, while Litecoin and digital token Stellar were down 12.76% and 8.67%, respectively. LTC is currently trading at $243.06, while XLM is changing hands at $0.3529. In addition, XRP dropped by 7.61% to $1.12, while Uniswap shed 10.60% to land at $21.95.

As it stands, the major reason for the general price drop in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and crypto across the board remains unclear. Furthermore, this retreat comes after many of these digital currencies attained record prices for the month of November. For instance, BTC ramped up its way to a record high of $68,990 on November 10th, while Ether hit its own all-time high of $4,670 the day after.

Currently, the global crypto market cap is $2.65 trillion, which represents a 7.74% slide. Despite the recent drop, Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, chooses to see it differently. According to Ayyar in an email to CNBC:

“I think we’re seeing a healthy pullback after a 7-week rally from 40K to 69K, which is normal in an upward trend.”

Mixed Bag in Reception Towards Bitcoin, Ethereum and Other Crypto

Bitcoin and digital currencies, in general, have received mixed responses from the general populace since they first started garnering attention. In some quarters, crypto is gradually inching its way into mainstream affairs, while in others, it has been outrightly banned or limited in scope.

For instance, major American corporations like the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association, and EV manufacturer Tesla favor crypto. The Mavs became the first NBA team to start accepting Dogecoin for tickets and merchandise earlier this year in March. In addition, the NBA team has been accepting BTC as payment for about two years now – becoming only the second team in the league to do so.

Tesla too earlier announced this year that it would start accepting BTC as payment – before the electric car company suspended that decision. However, in late July, the Elon Musk-led company revisited that decision and suggested that it is “most likely” going to start accepting BTC payment again. At the time, that decision helped propel the price of BTC past the $30K price level. Tesla currently has a sizable investment in BTC.

On the other hand, China proscribed all crypto activities and made a sweeping crackdown on BTC mining back in September. According to the Southeast Asian country, mining:

“…causes large energy consumption and carbon emission. It has no active impact to lead industry development or scientific progress.”

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Tolu Ajiboye

Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.