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Bitcoin crashes to lowest this year, losses top 25 per cent in a week

  • The digital currency has sunk as far as US$4,300; traders and market makers blame it on heavy selling at leveraged exchanges in Asia

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Bitcoin has plummeted over 75 per cent this year from a peak of US$20,000 touched in December as retail investors piled into a one of the largest bubbles in history. Photo: AFP

Bitcoin slumped on Tuesday to its lowest this year, tumbling as much as 10 per cent to breach US$4,300 and taking losses in the world’s best-known digital coin to 25 per cent within a week.

Other smaller coins also skidded sharply as a broader cryptocurrency sell-off, said by traders and market makers to be rooted in heavy selling at leveraged Asian exchanges, gathered steam.

The fall followed a sudden plunge last week that shook bitcoin out of a period of relative stability, where prices had hovered around the US$6,500 mark for several months.

Bitcoin sunk as far as US$4,327, its lowest since October 2017. By mid-afternoon, it was trading around US$4,750 on the Bitstamp exchange.

“We’d been waiting for a break-out,” said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro. “When you have the price moving so steadily you had lots of stop-loss orders building up – and now you are seeing them being liquidated.”

Ripple’s XRP and Ethereum’s ether, the second and third-largest coins, fell as much as 14 and 16 per cent respectively before clawing back losses in US trading hours.

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