Bitcoin price plummeted by as much as 15 percent, the biggest single-day drop the world's largest cryptocurrency recorded since February. Interestingly, it happened just a few days after skyrocketing to record highs.
Bitcoin value reached a record of $64,869 last week, coinciding with Coinbase going public and "memecoin" Dogecoin price increasing to 400 percent, Yahoo Finance reported.
The cryptocurrency's price declined from more than $64,000 to around $55,000, the lowest Bitcoin (BTC) price since the end of last March.
Ethereum (ETH), the world's second-largest crypto asset, also went down by as much as 18 percent or less than $2,000. Other cryptocurrencies like Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), and Binance Coin (BNB) also suffered losses due to the price drop.
Dogecoin price went down to 24 cents this weekend. It is after the crypto's price soared to 45 cents, following Elon Musk, Tesla founder and tech billionaire, tweeted in favor of it.
Bitcoin Crackdown
Several speculations emerged citing possible reasons why bitcoin price dropped, including the plan of the United States Treasury to fight money laundering via cryptocurrencies, as per Bloomberg's story.
US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) declined to comment via email, neither confirming nor refuting the existence of a possible cryptocurrency crackdown campaign.
Bitcoin price started to drop on Friday, following Turkey's central bank decision to ban the use of crypto assets and digital tokens for retail transactions due to risks of potential losses, as per The Guardian.
Cryptocurrency ban law is also mulled over in India and the Indian government is currently imposing penalties against people who are holding or trading digital currencies, USA Today reported.
In January, European Central Bank noted that Bitcoin is enabling criminal activities, encouraging governments across the globe to investigate and look into crypto assets.
Bitcoin Mining Blackout
Bitcoin mining, which almost half of its network is based in China's Xinjiang region, came to a halt after bitcoin miners networks shut down due to a 48-hour blackout, cryptocurrency news website CoinMarketCap shared.
Bitcoin hash rate slowed down due to the Xinjiang blackout. Bitcoin price is anchored on the BTC hash rate, according to market analyst Willy Woo.
Bitcoin price remains up more than 90 percent this 2021 or five times higher than October 2020. Despite the decline, BTC value is still more than $1 trillion.
Bitcoin Acceptance
Despite the declines and movements against crypto assets, big companies across the globe have started allowing digital tokens to their payment systems.
Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley, one of the world's biggest investment banks, has provided some of its richest clients access to Bitcoin funds.
Elon Musk, who previously expressed criticism versus Bitcoin through tweets, announced in February that Tesla would accept BTC as payment for its electric car and self-driving models, such as the Model S and the Model X.
U.S. online payments company PayPal also enabled customers to transact using cryptocurrencies and is now accepting Bitcoin digital tokens as a form of payment.
Bitcoin supporters and other cryptocurrency proponents see digitals tokens as modern money and inflation hedge, while other experts express worry and criticize it as a speculative bubble.
