Bitcoin acquired hammered over the weekend in a fall that sparked fears of one other “crypto winter,” when the crypto king crashed for months starting in December 2017.
December 2021, to date, hasn’t been a lot kinder to bitcoin. As CNBC reports, on Friday morning, December 3, bitcoin was buying and selling round $57,000 per coin. That’s beneath its all-time excessive of round $69,000 in early November, however nonetheless respectable. However by Saturday, December 4, bitcoin had dropped as a lot as 17% to commerce at $43,000 per coin.
By Sunday, December 5, bitcoin did get well from a few of its losses, buying and selling at a excessive of round $49,000 for a while, however as of the time of this writing, bitcoin is down once more, over 3% this time, to simply over $47,500 per coin, according to CoinMarketCap.
So what’s occurred? Reuters points out two issues doubtless liable for the drop over the weekend. Curiously, weekend buying and selling can typically be unhealthy for cryptocurrencies. As Reuters factors out, decrease buying and selling liquidity “tends to plague cryptocurrencies at weekends.” However the primary concern affecting bitcoin this previous weekend was doubtless fears over the omicron Covid-19 variant. As CNBC notes, the specter and uncertainty round how unhealthy the omicron variant will probably be for each folks and the economic system despatched traders to safer and extra secure investments than cryptocurrencies, reminiscent of the 10-year U.S. Treasury be aware.
So the place does bitcoin go from right here? Nobody can say for certain. Nevertheless it’s cheap to imagine that till uncertainties over the omicron variant and its attainable results on the economic system are overcome, cryptocurrencies might proceed to be extra unstable than regular.
