Falling below $20,000 would be a sobering step for a market that has boomed during the pandemic, analysts say.
“A break below $20,000 would be a massive psychological blow and could send bitcoin further into a tailspin,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, a foreign exchange firm, said in a note on Tuesday.
Ether, the second most valuable digital coin, fell 12% on Thursday. It has now lost 78% of its value since its peak in November.
The beleaguered industry braces for further suffering.
The Celsius Network, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency lenders, announced on Monday that “extreme market conditions” had forced it to temporarily suspend all withdrawals, crypto exchanges and transfers between accounts.
The company told its 1.7 million customers that it had made the decision to “stabilize cash and operations while taking steps to preserve and protect assets.” He said it would “take some time” before customers were allowed to withdraw their deposits again.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, suspended withdrawals on its bitcoin network for a few hours on Monday after some transactions “stuck” and caused a backlog.
— Jordan Valinsky contributed to this report.
