The cryptocurrency fell as much as 16% to $ 45,000, rapidly losing the mark of more than $ 58,000 that it had hit last week. On Monday, it had already posted a 17% drop before reducing the drop. With the strong low and everything, Bitcoin still accumulates a 390% gain last year.
The crash has a protagonist, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, Janet Yellen. On the future of cryptocurrencies, the senior official said that bitcoin may be an asset as an investment, but it will not become a means of payment because “it is very inefficient.” In addition, he acknowledged that they will study the launch of a future digital dollar.
Yellen assured this Monday that bitcoin continues without being established as a payment method and is “an extremely inefficient way to transact.” His sayings fell like a bucket of cold water after the cryptocurrency soared weeks ago.
After his statements, which are added to that of other influential figures in the financial world, the most popular cryptocurrency and with the largest market capitalization, collapses for the second consecutive day, about 16% in the session this Tuesday, after reaching its historical maximum last Sunday, above US $ 58,000.
So far this week, that is to say less than two days, the cryptocurrency lost more than US $ 10,000, since it has gone from US $ 58,350 on Sunday, its record so far, to the US $ 45,300 at which it is trading now, according to data from Bloomberg. The bitcoin already fell 4% on Monday and today it falls almost 12%.
Beyond Yellen’s strong sayings, some analysts also link the cryptocurrency’s decline to a comment on Twitter by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in which he noted that bitcoin and ether are likely, the second most used cryptocurrency, they were too high.
But they were not the only ones to cast doubt on the cryptocurrency. More than a month ago, the president of the ECB (European Central Bank), Christine Lagarde, had also made strong criticism of bitcoin and claimed “a globally agreed regulation” because it is an asset “highly speculative” and that facilitates “illicit business and money laundering operations”.
The former head of the International Monetary Fund expressed her concern about the possible uses of the most famous cryptocurrency and even warned that “she understood that there were criminal investigations into illegal activities.”
YN
.
