Bitcoin is losing more than 4% in trading on Friday amid a general investor withdrawal from risky assets amid traders’ concerns that global central bank rates will be held at higher-than-expected levels for longer than expected.
Bitcoin’s exchange rate fell 4.1 percent to $26474, according to Kraken data as of 12:55 p.m. Q4.
The cryptocurrency, which traded around $29,000 the day before, began to fall sharply in price amid rising US Treasuries yields, which reduced the attractiveness of investing in high-risk assets.
This triggered a massive liquidation of bitcoin positions on cryptocurrency exchanges. The bitcoin exchange rate fell by more than $2,000 within minutes during trading on Thursday, from $28400 to less than $26,000, Market Watch noted.
The volume of bitcoin positions closed in the past 24 hours exceeded $1 billion, according to Coinglass.
Experts note that the sharp drop in the cryptocurrency’s rate coincided with the release of an article in The Wall Street Journal about the sale of bitcoins by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. The article stated that SpaceX wrote down the value of the $373 million worth of bitcoins it owned in 2021 and 2022 and sold the cryptocurrency. WSJ did not specify exactly when SpaceX sold the bitcoins.
