Bitcoin price news – live: BTC and Ethereum tumble, leaving crypto market in limbo

Bitcoin slides down closer to $56,000 mark

After inching closer to the $58,000 mark late Tuesday, bitcoin’s value has slid down again to about $56,000 and is down by about 1.5 per cent in the last 24 hours.

The leading cryptocurrency has dropped in value by over 4 per cent in the last week.

The overall crypto market appears to be stabilising, almost remaining unchanged in value in the last 24 hours.

It is currently valued at about $2.56 trillion, nearly the same as its value a day earlier.

Ethereum has grown by over 1 per cent in the last day but other top cryptocurrencies including solana and cardano are down by 2 to 7 per cent in the last 24 hours.

Cardano is down by over 8 per cent in the last week, while solana is closer to its value seven days earlier.

Meme coins doge coin and its spinoff cryptocurrency shib inu are also down between 4 to 15 per cent in the last week.

While there are some signs of recovery of the crypto market, the chart still looks mostly red.

Is El Salvador’s plan to build the volcano-powered Bitcoin City the beginning of ‘hyperbitcoinisation’ or simply hyperbole?

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Amid a flurry of fireworks, blaring rock music and cheering crowds, the president of El Salvador took to the stage at LaBitConf 2021 conference over the weekend to unveil his vision for a volcano-powered ‘Bitcoin City’.

As arguably the world’s least conventional world leader, Nayib Bukele is as disruptive and divisive as bitcoin itself. The self-proclaimed “coolest dictator in the world” and “CEO of El Salvador” oversaw the country becoming the first in the world to adopt the cryptocurrency as a legal form of tender earlier this year, and has plans to begin a revolution not just in his country, but the entire world.

Decked in all white and wearing his trademark backwards baseball cap, Bukele used Alexander the Great as an analogy for what he was hoping to achieve with Bitcoin City. “When Alexander the Great was conquering the world, he established these Alexandria cities all over the empire,” he told the crowd. “The whole point of these Alexandrias was to be the beacons of hope for the rest of the world. I thought, if you want bitcoin to spread all over the world, we should build some Alexandrias. We should build the first Alexandria here in El Salvador.”

Built in the shadow of the Conchagua volcano on the country’s southern tip, Bitcoin City is envisioned as a kind of libertarian utopia crossed with an environmentalist’s fantasyland, combining zero income and property tax with zero CO2 emissions.

It will be a proper legal municipality, complete with an elected mayor, residential and commercial areas, museums, airports – “everything devoted to bitcoin” – even a plaza designed in the shape of the cryptocurrency’s logo.

To finance the city, El Salvador partnered with digital assets firm Blockstream to launch a $1 billion bitcoin bond, with the company saying the city will bring about the acceleration of “hyperbitcoinisation” – a bold new era where the cryptocurrency usurps the US dollar to become the default value system of the world.

Bitcoin evangelicals like Bukele cite the digital currency’s borderless, censorship-resistant technology for its potential to displace the dollar and transform the current financial system into one that favours the masses, not just the massively wealthy…

Bitcoin is now down more than $10,000 from the peak it reached on 10 November, with still no solid signs of the price slide stopping.

Speaking to various analysts and experts, we heard their thoughts on what caused this latest price correction – and where the cryptocurrency might go from here. Reasons range from the US infrastructure bill, to the liquidation of MtGox assets that account for more than 3 per cent of the entire circulating supply of BTC.

You can read the full story here:

Elon Musk has questioned the CEO of Binance about the crypto exchange’s treatment of dogecoin users.

Binance boss Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, has previously said he “doesn’t get” dogecoin and caused outrage among fans of the meme-inspired token after temporarily suspending doge withdrawals last week after a “minor issue”.

Musk, who is one of the most high-profile fans of dogecoin, asked CZ on Twitter this morning: “What’s going on with your Doge customers? Sounds shady.”

The crypto boss is yet to respond to the SpaceX and Tesla boss.

Bitcoin climbs above $56,000

After dropping below $56,000, bitcoin is inching back to $57,000, but is still down by about 2 per cent compared to its value a day earlier.

The overall crypto market is down by about 1 per cent over the last day, and is currently valued at about $2.56 trillion.

Other top cryptocurrencies, including ethereum, solana, and cardano are also down by about 1 to 2 per cent in the last 24 hours.

Meme coins doge coin and its spinoff shiba inu are also down by over 11 per cent in the last week, but show signs of stabilising in the last 24 hours.

The chart still looks all red with marginal signs of recovery.

The price of bitcoin has fallen to its lowest level since mid October following a sudden dip.

It is currently trading just below $56,000 but there is no clear sign that it has reached the bottom of this price fall. Some analysts are saying there is resistance at this level, though during periods of price discovery the market can be particularly volatile.

Other leading cryptocurrencies are also seeing heavy losses, with Ethereum (ether), Binance Coin, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ada) all falling in price by between 5- 8 per cent on Monday.

Here’s what Simon Peters, an analyst at the online trading platform eToro, has to say about the latest market correction: “With bitcoin and other cryptoassets having reached fresh all-time highs, there was always likely to be a measure of profit-taking from investors which then translates into price weakness. Both BTC and ETH go from strength to strength, and the ups and downs of the market are a part of this story.”

After barely catching his breath from belting out his ambition to build Bitcoin City, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has said he will appear at one of the biggest cryptocurrency conferences on the calendar.

Bitcoin 2022 will take place in Miami next April, providing a platform for many of the leading figures within the crypto industry. Up to 35,00 people are expected to attend the four-day event, one year after President Bukele first announced that his country would be the first in the world to introduce bitcoin as a legal form of tender.

Cryptocurrency firm MoonPay is now valued at a staggering $3.4 billion after just announcing a $555 million funding round.

The Miami-based fintech firm has described itself as “similar to PayPal, but for crypto”, as its software allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrency using traditional payment methods like bank transfer, credit and debit cards, and mobile apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

At just three years old, it is the latest company to benefit from a record-breaking year for cryptocurrency.

A restaurant in Canada is up 460 per cent on a bitcoin investment made last year after deciding to plough all of its profits into the cryptocurrency.

Tahinis, which specialises in Middle Eastern cuisine, adopts a ‘Bitcoin Standard’ strategy, which sees it operate in traditional fiat currency and put all its cash reserves into BTC. The strategy has so far “worked like a charm”, restaurant co-founder Aly Hamam, told Business Insider.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, whose software firm is the largest corporate investor in bitcoin ahead of Tesla, tweeted: “Their story is inspirational.”

Australia’s financial services minister Jane Hume has warned finance leaders in the country that cryptocurrency is “not a fad”.

Speaking at the Australian Financial Review summit today, Hume said that government and industry should not ignore the crypto industry.

She said: “This is not a fad. We should tread cautiously, but not fearfully. Don’t be the person in 1995 who said the internet was just a place for geeks and criminals and would never become mainstream. And don’t be the person who argued that email was a passing fad.”