Crypto markets drop further as Elon Musk’s Twitter spat with Bitcoin fans escalates
Coinhead
Coinhead
Cryptocurrencies have fallen again this morning, with prices continued to be whipsawed by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and his Bitcoin rumblings.
Bitcoin, which was trading for over US$49,000 last night, dropped under US$44,000 around 7am AEST after Elon Musk suggested on Twitter that Tesla might have sold off its US$1.5 billion stash of the original cryptocurrency.
Indeed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021
Bitcoiners have been feuding with the eccentric billionaire since Thursday, when Musk tanked crypto markets by changing his stance on accepting Bitcoin, supposedly because of environmental concerns.
A few hours earlier Musk pinged British cryptopodcaster Peter McCormack after the Bitcoin advocate sent a 24-tweet Twitter thread Musk’s way that concluded, “from one dick to another, I hope you stop being a dick”,
Obnoxious threads like this make me want to go all in on Doge
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021
At 11.21am AEST, Bitcoin was holding just above US$45,000 ($58,000), down 6.1 per cent from 24 hours ago (and well below its 100-day moving average of US$48,300). Ethereum was trading for just above US$3,400 ($4,300), down 10.5 per cent. Nearly every top 100 crypto was in the red.
Despite the pullback this morning it was still a great weekend for a couple of cryptocurrencies.
Cardano (ADA) broke US$2 for the first time ever on Saturday, reaching a peak of US$2.46 on Sunday, apparently on hopes the proof-of-stake blockchain might be adopted as an energy-efficient alternative to BTC.
At 11.40am AEST it was trading for US$2.18, and had leapfrogged Dogecoin to once again become a top 4 crypto, behind Binance Coin.
Polygon (MATIC), an energy-efficient proof-of-stake scaling solution for Ethereum, reached an all-time high as US$1.86 on Sunday, up from around US2c at the start of the year.
Polygon was trading at US$1.62 per cent on Monday morning, up 66 per cent from a week ago, and was listed as the No. 18 token on Coinmarketcap.
Solana, THORChain, Kusama and Polkadot all also hit all-time highs on Sunday, while Leo Token did on Saturday. But they were all well off those levels Monday morning, consumed by the Musk drama, which some were comparing to a love affair gone wrong.
#bitcoin hodl’ers and @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/vWzXdxkd8L
— Neo (@thedesertwolfe) May 17, 2021
Bitcoin Twitter is definitely still in the anger stage of grief from the Elon breakup.
— Girl Gone Crypto (@girlgone_crypto) May 17, 2021
i will never forgive elon musk
— CryptoFinally 💫 (@CryptoFinally) May 15, 2021
#Bitcoin doesn’t need Elon Musk and personally, I’m getting absolutely irritated by the way this market is acting based on his tweets.
It’s a fucking joke.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) May 16, 2021
Musk, who co-founded a payments company known as X.com, which was acquired by Paypal in 2000, seemed clearly uninterested in being lectured by Bitcoiners.
Hey cryptocurrency “experts”, ever heard of PayPal? It’s possible … maybe … that I know than you realize about how money works.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021