The prices of the world most famous cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ether, as well as others, are currently down after dropping over ten percent in the early morning hours ET Saturday.
Bitcoin saw its price plummet over 10 percent to a low of almost $43,000 from an all-time high of almost $70,000. Although the cryptocurrency made a brief recovery to about $47,100, Coindesk data shows that it has dropped over 16 percent in the last 24 hours.
The price of Ether, the Ethereum network’s cryptocurrency was also down more than 10 percent to a low of almost $3,500 from an all-time high of $4,700. It, however, made a short recovery trading around $3,870. According to data from Coindesk, Ether has lost over 14 percent in market value over the last 24 hours.
The recent troubles characterizing the cryptocurrency market started since the omicron Covid variant surfaced; this has also affected the stock market – currently, many stocks are down. Bitcoin which attained an all-time high of $68,000 hit a seven-week low close to $54,000 on the 26th of November, officially entering the bear market territory.
Typically, bear markets are defined by a decline of at least 20 percent from the most recent highs. From its all-time high trading price of more than $68,000 which it hit in the first week of November, Bitcoin is down about 30 percent.
As seen on Wall Street, major averages are reporting losses as the market continues to be affected by the Omicron Covid Variant which the World Health Organization (WHO) says is currently present in 38 countries worldwide.
Last month, both Ethereum and Bitcoin announced upgrades. Ethereum announced its Altair upgrade while Bitcoin announced its Taproot upgrade, and one would have thought that new milestones would have been attained following these upgrades. Irrespective of the current trends, experts and crypto advocates still have high hopes in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other affected cryptocurrencies.
As of the time of writing this article, Bitcoin was trading at $46,758, while the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum was trading at $3,868.81.
