Bitcoin Slides 6% Overnight, Back Under $40k

The price of Bitcoin fell 6% overnight, despite clocking in some midweek gains, as the global crypto market shed a staggering 4.1% ($78 billion) from its total market cap.

Bitcoin started the week at a discount, with Monday’s lows bottoming out at $37,518, according to CoinMarketCap.

The world’s leading cryptocurrency then rallied 20% over 48 hours to hit $45,077 by Wednesday. At that point, Bitcoin was soaring above traditional financial markets, like the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, both of which appeared to be flagging amid the global uncertainty poised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But Bitcoin’s midweek gains were short lived. At its current price of $38,014, Bitcoin has fallen about 16% from Wednesday's high.

In general, the global crypto market has been bearish since Friday, when it shed $98 billion in total market volume.

At Friday’s peak, Bitcoin was trading at $42,480, but most of its gains were quickly erased in the 12 hours after lunchtime UTC, when prices tumbled to $38,806, a loss of about 8.6%.

Ethereum is also down today, but not by as much. The second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap fell 2.15% overnight and was trading at $2,645.