Bitcoin Drops $1,000 In Value Amid Market Sell-Off

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has once again come into contact with a greater crypto market sell-off slashing its price by more than $1,000.

On May. 17 at 2:00 UTC, bitcoin (BTC) dropped by 16.7 percent to find a bid below $7,000 at $6,600 before rising once more on the back of high volatility, moving above $7,000 to where it currently sits at $7,300, according to CoinMarketCap and CoinDesk data.

In the last 24 hours, bitcoin’s market capitalization also dropped more than $10 billion over a 24-hour period. However, BTC remains positive over a 7-day period, up $14 billion on the week amid high volatility and market disagreements on its true price.

The reasons for the sell-off could be attributed to large sell-orders liquidating numerous stop-loss positions and invoking general panic amongst traders.

Indeed a sell-order on the Bitstamp exchange for example, of 3,645 BTC or $26.8 million in US dollar terms, was executed at around 02:00 UTC on May 17 and could have been one of the major causes for a dip below $7,000.

It’s no small secret that when bitcoin moves in value, the rest of the crypto markets may also do so as seen by a large capitulation in daily prices which are currently down between 11 and 22 percent amongst the top 100 at CoinMarketCap.

Ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) all suffered similar losses losing between 8 and 16 percent in value while stellar (XLM), XRP and cardano (ADA) were the hardest hit in the top 10 by market capitalization, dropping 16.3, 16.5, 16.7 percent respectively.

The total crypto market capitalization also took a hit dropping more than $29 billion over the last 24-hours hinting at investor uncertainty as they transition to the sidelines to await bitcoin's next move.

Disclosure: The author holds USDT at the time of writing.

Bitcoin Image via Shutterstock