The decline of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, mirrored the stock market’s drop.
Photo: Kin Cheung/Associated Press
The cryptocurrency market fell over the weekend, mirroring the slide of the broader stock market.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin, fell to $33,840 on Sunday afternoon, a 6% change from Friday evening, according to prices from CoinDesk. Bitcoin’s price is almost half of its all-time high of $67,802.30 in November.
As more professional investors have entered the cryptocurrency market, it has increasingly moved in tandem with traditional markets. Institutional investors that buy cryptocurrencies treat them as risk assets, similar to tech stocks.
The stock market fell last week the day after the Federal Reserve announced a rate increase of a half point, the biggest since 2000, to battle inflation. The central bank is also unwinding some of its $9 trillion asset portfolio. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said there could be additional increases over the summer.
Investors have been less enthusiastic about risky bets amid the stock market’s decline. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite hit a 52-week low on Friday, falling to 12144.66. Year to date it is down 22%.
The crypto market was active over the weekend with $100 billion in market volume, according to CoinMarketCap. The global crypto market is now $1.6 trillion.
Etherium, the second-largest cryptocurrency, had a price Sunday afternoon of about $2,519.07, a 6.8% decline from Friday at 5 p.m. EDT.
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