Bitcoin Just Crashed In A Major Way
This morning the USD/BTC Bitcoin pairing crashed in a significant way, showing that even the digital currency is not immune to COVID-19 panic*. COVID-19 is the official name of novel coronavirus, the disease that's spread from the Wuhan province of China across the planet over the past several weeks and months. Bitcoin crashed from around $8k to under $6k in the past 24 hours.
Daily RSI on Bitcoin today is the second lowest it's EVER been accorning to the latest Coinbase chart. As the price of Bitcoin (to USD) falls, so too does the price of other major cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin. At the point at which this article is set to publish, percentage change for the biggest cryptocurrencies (via Coinbase, 24-hour chart) are as follows:
- Bitcoin BTC: -22.27%
- Ethereum ETH: -27.56%
- XRP: -17.82%
- Bitcoin Cash BCH: -27.01%
- Litecoin LTC: -26.6%
- Tether USDT: +0.2%
Over the last 24 hours, according to Coinbase, the entire market is down 22.37% for cryptocurrency pairs. While this might have a bit to do with COVID-19, another major factor is at play.
*According to Chain news, a large amount of Bitcoin was transferred this week, all at once. A "whale" miner, as it's called, sent over 1000BTC (equivalent to over $8 million USD) to exchanges on March 11, 2020. This whale's BTC addresses showed mining times all from August to October 2010.
"Most of the 1,000 Bitcoins were never touched after being mined in 2020," wrote Chain.info. "Within hours of bringing together 1,000 BTC transactions, Bitcoin fell from $8,000 to around $7,500." This is causation and not necessarily correlation, but the events certainly seem to line up quite nicely.
If you live in the USA, you might've noticed some significant notes on cryptocurrency whilst filing your taxes before their April due date. This is due to ramping up of efforts on the part of the IRS in recent months, as cryptocurrency becomes a significant factor in how value is seen, transferred, and stored.