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Journalism of Courage
The cryptocurrency market Wednesday saw a big correction with prices of major currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB and others crashing as much as 30% within 24 hours. This came in the backdrop of Chinese regulators Tuesday announcing a crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
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According to crypto-trading platform Binance, as of 7pm IST Wednesday, Bitcoin — the most well-known cryptocurrency — was trading nearly 21% lower than its price 24 hours earlier at $34,693.1. Another popular cryptocurrency Ethereum was down 25% at $2,453.15 while Binance Coin or BNB was down almost 31% at $353.12.
While the Chinese announcement was the straw that broke the camel’s back, Bitcoin and Ethereum were on a decline since last week when Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the electric carmaker won’t be accepting Bitcoin as payment — a reversal of an earlier decision.
A crackdown by one of the world’s biggest economy notwithstanding, those in the ecosystem have termed this decline as a short-term correction. “A nearly 40% dip in the bitcoin price from its all-time high looks dramatic but is normal in many volatile markets, including crypto, especially after such a large rally. Such corrections are mainly due to short-term traders taking profits. Long-term value investors might call these lower prices a buying opportunity, as MicroStrategy just did,” Avinash Shekhar, Co-CEO of ZebPay, an India-based crypto exchange, said.
