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Wednesday 19 May 2021 8:12 pm

Crypto flash crash: Bitcoin gets Musk’ed with panic-selling across the board and Coinbase at record low

By: Michiel Willems

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How the tables have turned on Elon Musk and his Tesla’s Bitcoin investment. Bitcoin has now fallen over 50 per cent from record highs and erased away all the price gains that happened after the 8 February Tesla announcement that they would put Bitcoin on its balance sheet and accept it as a form of payment. 

“It got ugly fast for Bitcoin after Musk focused too much on Dogecoin and suspended vehicle purchase using Bitcoin on environmental concerns,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at OANDA.

“Today’s broad weakness across cryptocurrencies came from the next step in Beijing’s regulatory crackdown. China’s restrictions on cryptocurrencies are expanding and that has many investors nervous that panic-selling will continue,” he added.

Bitcoin’s crash approached the $30,000 level and that has a lot of the new institutional money see all their profit go up in smoke.

“This looks like your typical flash crash, but their seems to be some hesitancy in getting back in.  

Ethereum

Ethereum plunged below the $2,000 level and appears to be stabilizing.

“A panic-selling event will lead many investors to be selective and buy the crypto that they think will be most successful and more importantly survive the regulatory hammer(China back in focus here) that seems to coming,” Moya noted.

Ethereum’s blockchain is winning the use case argument and that should see it outperform its peers when the dust settles, he added.

Coinbase

Coinbase will go down as one of the worst direct listings ever, according to Moya.

“Coinbase is getting crushed as the crypto markets collapse.  The global crypto market is down over 25 per cent today alone and this crash will not bode well for attracting new customers,” he continued.

He argued that Coinbase wants new crypto traders, but many will be afraid that this Bitcoin crash could end up just like the one in 2017.  

“Coinbase’s trading debut coincides with the top for Bitcoin and many traders can’t make a convincing argument that it will be able to recover all those losses since then,” Moya concluded.

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