Bitcoin Erases April Gains After Slumping More Than 5% in a Day

Bitcoin on Monday slumped by 5.2%, erasing gains it had made in April when it rocketed above $30,000.

The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading hands for $28,275 as of 1.30 p.m. ET, according to CoinGecko.

That means the asset is also down 8.7% from the April high of $30,979 it hit just two weeks ago. Bitcoin had been on a roll: it surged past $30,000 for the first time in 10 months on April 10. It has now erased those gains.

But, overall, the coin is still doing well this year—it's up over 70% from the start of January, when it was priced at $16,615.

So if you bought in at the start of 2023, you're in great shape. If you bought anywhere near November 2021, not so much. Bitcoin, which has a market cap of $549 billion, is still down 58.8% from its all-time high of $69,044.

The rest of the biggest 20 coins and tokens were also in the red at the time of writing. Ethereum, the second biggest digital asset, was down nearly 5%, trading for $1,835.

While Solana, the 11th largest cryptocurrency, took the biggest 24-hour hit and dropped 6.8% to $21.92.

Why Everyone Is Keeping a Close Eye on Mt. Gox, US Gov Bitcoin Wallets

Bitcoiners are eying up crypto held by the feds. On Wednesday, the price of Bitcoin took a sharp nosedive—plunging 7% in an hour. It took most of the crypto market with it, too. The dip came shortly before erroneous reports claimed blockchain analytics firm Arkham had said wallets linked to defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox and the U.S. government had moved large amounts of Bitcoin. It turned out to be a false alarm as a result of the DB Newswire account on Twitter mislabelling wallets on Arkham's...

The crypto market, led by Bitcoin, has been doing well this year as investors continue to eye-up "risk-on" assets; Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was expected to slow the rate of interest rate hikes following a banking crisis in the U.S., which makes volatile investments fair game again in the eyes of traders with at least a moderate appetite for risk.

Experts have also claimed that with a recession apparently around the corner, investors have been flocking to "safe bets" like Bitcoin and gold.

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This narrative has been strengthened with the collapse of a number of banks in the United States. In March, regulators shut down Signature Bank, and tech-friendly Silicon Valley Bank went bust the same week.

Just today, regulators seized First Republic Bank; JPMorgan Chase agreed to buy most of its assets.