Bitcoin Crashes to $21K as ECB Raises Interest Rates by 75 Basis Points (Market Watch)

Bitcoin was halted after touching $21,000 after the European Central Bank said it will raise interest rates once more.

Altcoins are also back in the red, with the most notable losses coming from the likes of Cardano, Shiba Inu and Uniswap.

BTC declined to $21K

The past few days have been pretty good for the primary cryptocurrency. The asset rose to $19,600 on Monday, but was stopped before ever getting a chance to go up to $20,000. It returned to familiar ground at around $19,000 and stayed there for the next 24 hours.

The landscape began to change at that point as the asset soared over $1,000 and found itself trading above $20,000 for the first time in weeks. After a brief retreat, it went on the offensive again, jumping to $21,000 on Wednesday.

Yesterday was a little quieter as BTC failed to break $21,000. However, it started to lose value quickly as the ECB said it will raise interest rates by another 75 basis points, reaching the highest levels since the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

In a matter of hours, bitcoin fell by about $1,000 and fell all the way down to $20,000. It has managed to maintain that level as of now, but it has dropped over 3% in a day.

BTC’s market cap is down to $385 billion, while dominance over altcoins remains at 39.6%.

Altcoins Deep in Red Again

The altcoins traded similarly to bitcoin, meaning impressive gains charted in recent days. But today the situation is completely different.

Ethereum had risen all the way up to $1,550 – the highest price tag the asset had seen since the completion of the merger. Now, however, a 4% daily decline has pushed the second largest crypto to just under $1,500.

Binance Coin, Ripple, Solana, ATIC, Dogecoin, Polkadot, Tron and Avalanche have all fallen by similar percentages.

The worst performers from the larger companies are Cardano, Shiba Inu and Uniswap – all down between 6-7%.

With most lower and mid-caps in a similar state, the combined market capitalization of all crypto assets has seen $30 billion pass in a single day. As such, the calculation has fallen below $1 trillion on CoinMarketCap.