UPDATE (March 9, 15:30 UTC): After the publication of this story, bitcoin fell further, hitting two-month lows below $7,700. Dumping by a Ponzi scheme played a mighty role in the selloff, market sources said. Read more here.
The price of bitcoin has fallen to a one-month low below $7,900, amid a wider sell-off in the global financial markets.
As of writing, the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is changing hands at $7,837, the lowest in the past 30 days and a 10 percent decline on a 24-hour basis, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.
The price decline comes as the global financial markets suffer a wider sell-off, with Brent crude oil dropping over 30 percent on Sunday, its biggest single-day decline since 1991.
Underscoring the severity of the global flight from assets perceived as risky is the drop in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield below 0.5 percent for the first time ever, down over two percentage points from a year ago.
Bitcoin's sudden price dip also comes as the network's computing power and mining difficulty (a measure of competition among miners) are both expected to reach a new high in just five hours.
With more processing power chasing a less-valuable asset, mining farms that are using old mining equipment are in for an even tougher time.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
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Data from the mining pool Poolin shows the most widely used mining computers such as the AntMiner S9 and Avalon 851 are all at a critical breakeven point, meaning they are not generating any daily profits at bitcoin's current price, amid all-time-high mining difficulty.