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Bitcoin (BTC) has posted its steepest quarterly loss in 11 years as the price of the leading cryptocurrency plummeted as much as 56.27% between April and June, according to data from blockchain analytics Skew.
It’s the worst quarterly performance since Q3 2011, when Bitcoin fell by 66.62%—from $15.40 to $5.14, which is also beating the drastic price slumps of the first and the fourth quarters of 2018, when BTC lost 49.89% and 42.54%, respectively.
After a relatively calm first three months of 2022, which saw Bitcoin fall by just 1.46%, the benchmark cryptocurrency plummeted from above $45,000 at the start of April to levels below $20,000 on June 30—slipping underneath $18,000 in the process.
Bitcoin was trading at $19,594 by press time, up 1.89% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.
The latest market meltdown happened amid a cascade of dramatic events, such as the collapse of Terra ecosystem in May and the liquidity crisis faced by some crypto lending firms and hedge funds, including Celsius and Three Arrows Capital (3AC).
As the cumulative market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies slipped below $1 trillion in June, many established firms also announced they were reducing their headcount or shrinking operations.
These included crypto exchanges Coinbase, Gemini, Crypto.com, and Bitso, crypto lender BlockFi, as well as the leading European crypto broker Bitpanda.
Stocks join Bitcoin in downturn
Geopolitical tensions, growing uncertainty in global financial markets, and the Federal Reserve’s move to up interest rates by 0.75%—the largest such hike in 28 years—added more pressure to traditional equity markets too.
As of Thursday’s closing bell, the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite is down by more than 30% since the start of the year, the S&P 500 is down 21%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 15.88% over the span.
Yet, it’s not all doom and gloom in the crypto space, as some key players, including crypto exchanges Binance, FTX, and Kraken, confirmed their plans to hire new talent.
Others, such as Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy and El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele, took the opportunity to buy the dip, adding more Bitcoin to their stacks.
Earlier this week, MicroStrategy said it purchased an additional 480 Bitcoins for approximately $10 million at an average price of $20,817 per coin, while El Salvador announced today the country bought 80 Bitcoin at $19,000 per coin.