Cryptocurrencies have fallen sharply across the board after China tightened its crypto crackdown and Bitcoin suffered a death cross over the weekend.

Bitcoin was down 11.9 per cent this morning to a two-week low of US$31,493, while Ethereum had fallen 17.0 per cent to a more than one-month low of US$1,875.

Eighty-six of the top 100 coins on Coingecko were down at least 10 per cent, and 46 had dropped more than 20 per cent.

Dogecoin was the worst laggard, dropping 37 per cent to 17c, its lowest level since the meme coin went parabolic ahead of April 20. Doge is now down 75 per cent from its highs of six weeks ago.

Kusama, BitTorrent, Neo, Amp and Horizen had all fallen by more than a quarter.

crypto market
Coin360

Pirate Chain, the No. 90 crypto according to Coingecko, was the only coin in the green, rising 14 per cent to $3.78 after being listed on Kucoin. The privacy coin is still down 20 per cent for the week and well off its April highs of around US$10.

There had been 224,165 traders rekt in the past 24 hours, with a US$1.08 billion in value liquidated. That’s the most since June 8, but not close to the US$7.6 billion wiped out on May 19 or the US$9.2 billion lost on April 18 – a sign that the previously highly leveraged crypto market is no longer so leveraged.
 

China mining ban

EToro market analyst and crypto expert Simon Peters blamed the selloff on China extending its crackdown on cryptoasset mining, including in Sichuan province, one of the biggest regions for Bitcoin mining globally.

Twenty-six of the largest mining projects in the province have been shut down for several days as authorities conduct investigations, the Financial Times reported.

(When mining hashpower is subtracted from the network, Bitcoin transactions take longer until the end of each roughly two-week “epoch” when there’s a difficulty adjustment.)

China’s central bank also announced it had summoned banks and payment firms, including China Construction Bank and Alipay, and urged them to crack down harder on crypto trading, Reuters reported.

IG Markets analyst Kyle Rodda told Ausbiz this morning that “it does sort of flesh out that the biggest risk for Bitcoin is still that regulators will want to clamp down on it”.

Rodda did note that cryptos were falling drastically on a day when shares were rising. The ASX All Ordinaries was up 1.4 per cent at lunchtime.

“We’re moving independently from other markets, so I guess you could say that is a silver lining for those who would consider adding Bitcoin to their portfolio (to diversify), but nevertheless regulatory risk is still there,” Rodda said.

If Bitcoin drops below US$30,000 in the next couple of days, “that probably a pretty ominous sign” that might “open the floodgates” to a further plunge, Rodda said, echoing a consensus view.
 

The best memes

There’s no crying in crypto, so Bitcoiners were doing their best to find humour in seeing their Lambo dreams go up in smoke.

A certain fast food restaurant featured predominantly.

This video features Microstrategy chief executive Michael Saylor, famous for buying Bitcoin with company funds, as well as a who’s who of Crypto Twitter influencers.

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