Bitcoin Briefly Drops Below $48K as Analysts Say Rally Overdone, Yellen Comments
Bitcoin swiftly lost altitude early on Monday, dropping over 15% to below $50,000 before rebounding somewhat. The downward price movement came after bitcoin reached new record highs above $58,300 over the weekend.
The drop seemed to accelerate as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speaking at a New York Times event, described bitcoin as “highly speculative asset” that is extremely inefficient for transactions. Yellen also called the amount of energy consumed in processing those transactions “staggering.”
The entire market followed bitcoin’s drop. Ether is down nearly 10% over the past 24 hours, trading at $1,770 after falling to $1,546, according to the CoinDesk price index. On Kraken, ether dropped to $700, a 64% crash. The decentralized finance sector of assets is down nearly 8%, per data from Messari.
