The weekend currency circle market suffered a bloodbath, and Bitcoin fell below the $20,000 (about 134,200 yuan) mark, for the first time since December 2020, at 5:00 a.m. Beijing time on the 19th, it once fell below $18,000. This is already the 12th consecutive day that the currency has fallen. Since its all-time high of $69,000/coin in November 2021, Bitcoin has depreciated by about 70%.
Other cryptocurrencies are equally tragic, Ethereum fell below $900, and well-known alt currencies such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have also successively spit back their previous gains, and the trend is weak.
On the afternoon of June 19, after falling below $18,000 twice, Bitcoin came out of a reversal. According to the data of the global coin price website CoinGecko, as of 18:30 on June 19, Bitcoin was quoted at $19718.57, a 24-hour increase of 1.8%, and a decline of 30.4% in the past 7 days; Ethereum was quoted at $1055.70, a 24-hour gain of 4.6%, or 30.7% in the last 7 days.
The plunge in the value of the currency has undoubtedly triggered a new round of network-wide explosion storm - according to Coinglass data, as of 8 o'clock on June 19, a total of 150,000 people in the digital currency field have been blown up in the past 24 hours, with a total amount of $567 million.
At the same time, an intuitive comparison shows that the heavy decline the cryptocurrency market has experienced in the past seven months has reduced its market value to an "apple" – the current total market value of the entire cryptocurrency market is only about $834 billion, compared with $3 trillion at its peak in November last year, and the cryptocurrency market has "evaporated" more than $2.1 trillion in just seven months, close to the current market value of THE US technology leading Apple Company of $2.13 trillion.
Bitcoin's plunge was linked to some bearish news from cryptocurrency-related businesses last week. Cryptocurrency lending business Cercius Networks said it would suspend withdrawal and transfer business in June. Some related companies have begun to lay off employees.
The downward trend of cryptocurrencies is also related to the US stock market. To curb inflation, the Fed recently raised interest rates sharply, triggering a sharp drop in Wall Street stocks last week. Affected by this, investors have dumped risky assets, including cryptocurrencies.
Nearly 90% of the wealth of the richest Chinese has evaporated, and Musk has also lost money
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, seven cryptocurrency-related billionaires have lost a total of $114 billion from a record high of $69,000 on Bitcoin on November 9 to now hover around $21,000.
The one on the list that started with the biggest losses was Zhao Changpeng, founder of The World's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Whose fortune surpassed Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Suishui's 424.4 billion yuan at the end of last year with nearly $96 billion (about 610 billion yuan at the time) to top The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, The richest Chinese.
According to the data, its net worth is only $10.2 billion, and its wealth has evaporated by nearly 89%. Some netizens joked that this was "returning to poverty overnight".
According to the latest query of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of June 15, Zhao Changpeng's net worth has shrunk by more than $10 million, and his net worth has plummeted by 89.3% so far this year, evaporating 85.6 billion US dollars (about 580 billion yuan).
The dive in virtual currencies has also made Tesla, which was previously optimistic about Bitcoin, "hurt".
According to bitcoin treasury bonds, companies that track bitcoin businesses around the world, Tesla currently has 43,200 tokens, ranking second among the companies that hold the most bitcoins. Leading the way is MicroStrategy.
At the current price of $19,000+ per coin, Tesla has less than $900 million in tokens. Tesla lost nearly $600 million when investing in this digital currency compared to spending $1.5 billion on Bitcoin in early 2021.
Tesla has previously said that the purpose of investing in Bitcoin is to diversify the source of liquidity and make asset allocation more flexible, and its CEO Musk has repeatedly promoted virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin. In the first few months of Tesla's purchase of bitcoin, due to the high price of bitcoin, Tesla did not lose money, but also made a lot of money, especially on November 10 last year, when bitcoin hit a record high of $69,044.77, Tesla made a lot of money.
Previously, Tesla said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it would hold $1.99 billion worth of bitcoin by the end of 2021.
During the company's holdings in Bitcoin, the token continued to fluctuate significantly, reaching $66,000 in May 2021, down $28,000 in July 2021, and reaching an all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021.
After buying Bitcoin last year, Elon Musk said Tesla would let customers buy cars using cryptocurrency.
By mid-year, however, he withdrew his statement over concerns that bitcoin mining would have a negative impact on the environment, leading to climate change. He then revealed the possibility that Tesla would still be acceptable if miners used clean energy to mine.
A number of virtual currency platforms announced layoffs
The virtual currency industry is laying off employees to survive the "cold winter".
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, said on Tuesday it would lay off about 1,000 people, or 18 percent of the workforce. The reason is to worry about the coming recession and the "crypto winter". Its latest earnings report showed a net loss of $430 million in the first quarter of 2022, compared to a net profit of $840 million in the previous quarter. Since going public on the NASDAQ last April, the company's stock has been hit hard. Once its highest market capitalization was nearly $100 billion, it is now less than $12 billion.
In fact, several peers have announced massive layoffs in recent weeks, including cryptocurrency lending platform BlockFi, cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com, Gemini, argentina-based exchange Buenbit. Among them, Buenbit laid off 45% of its employees in May.
During the crypto bear market from 2017 to 2018, Bitcoin plunged 83%, from $19,423 to $3,217. But by November 2021, the price of Bitcoin will exceed $69,000/coin.
On Friday (June 17), local time, the Federal Reserve warned of the "structural vulnerability" of stablecoins in its semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress. The report warns that the recent plunge and sharp volatility in the stablecoin and other digital asset markets highlight the structural fragility of this fast-growing sector.
Stablecoins that are not safe and adequately liquid and are not subject to relevant regulatory standards would pose risks to investors and could have an impact on the financial system, including the probability of exacerbating a disruptive run, the report suggests. At the same time, the risks and liquidity of assets that support stablecoins lack transparency or further exacerbate these vulnerabilities.
Musk tweeted that it will continue to support Dogecoin
On Sunday (June 18), local time, Elon Musk tweeted that he would continue to support Dogecoin.
Some netizens replied that they hoped he could continue to buy the cryptocurrency, and Musk said that he "has this intention."
This week, the Federal Reserve announced its single sharpest interest rate hike since 1994, and in an environment of dollar surge and market panic, the commodity market staged a "massacre", of course, the currency circle market also suffered a bloodbath.
According to Coindesk's quote, Dogecoin is now quoted at $0.0555/coin, and the price ten days ago was around $0.08, with a cumulative drop of more than 30%; Since the beginning of this year, Dogecoin has fallen by as much as 80%.
As the "(unofficial) spokesperson" of Dogecoin, Musk has naturally received a lot of criticism. It is worth mentioning that this week, a Dogecoin investor named Keith Johnson accused Musk of constantly promoting and supporting cryptocurrencies in the U.S. District Court, inducing others to take over at a high level, which is a "Ponzi scheme".
Johnson is demanding that the lawsuit he filed be classified as a class action lawsuit representing those who have suffered losses since investing in Dogecoin since 2019, and that Musk compensate him and other investors for a total of $258 billion, perhaps even more than all of Musk's net worth.
According to foreign media estimates, the world's richest man currently has a total wealth of about $206 billion, and nearly half of it is Tesla's stock. Musk has mentioned Dogecoin on social platforms many times and praised it.
Looking back at history, Musk first mentioned Dogecoin in 2019 and said it was his favorite cryptocurrency. As he overtakes Bezos to become the world's richest man in 2021, his Twitter account is becoming more and more influential, and the price of Dogecoin has also fluctuated under his influence.
In January, Musk again announced that Dogecoin would be able to purchase some of Tesla's North American official website, namely Cyberwhistle Whistle, Cyberquad for Kids Kids motorcycle and Giga Texas Belt Buckle, priced from 300 to 12,020 pieces, and the payment channel is still open.
Source: Financial Associated Press, Beijing Business Daily, Xinhua News Agency New Media, 21st Century Business Herald, Sina Hong Kong Stocks, etc