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Bitcoin Plummets to Below $40K

The world’s largest cryptocurrency by volume has dropped in a month nearly 40% from its all-time high.

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:57 p.m. Published May 19, 2021, 5:32 a.m. 1 min read
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Bitcoin continued its month-long swoon Tuesday night, dropping below $40,000 for the first time since early February.

  • The cryptocurrency was trading around $39,678 as of 05:29 UTC (1:29 a.m. ET) – a more than 12% drop over the previous 24 hours.
  • Bitcoin’s 24-hour price ranged from a low of $38,960 to a high of $45,850.
  • Bitcoin has fallen nearly 40% since its high of over $64,000 in February.
  • Other major cryptocurrencies continued to fall, too. Ether (ETH) dipped below $3,000 for the first time since May 2, although it had regained this threshold as of 01:29 UTC.
  • Joe DiPasquale, the CEO and founder of BitBull, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, said bitcoin’s volatility this year is consistent with its history of “higher highs and higher lows.”
  • He called the “fall in price ... a natural consolidation period that we see as necessary for the support lines to form for future appreciation.”

Read more: Now’s the Time to Bet on Volatility in Bitcoin and Ether Markets: Options Experts

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(Win McNamee/Getty Images)

CNBC reported Tuesday that Musk is discussing a merger between Tesla and SpaceX that would tie his tech empire closer together and instantly create the world’s fifth-largest corporate bitcoin treasury, worth $3.3 billion.

What to know:

  • Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger of Tesla and SpaceX, a move that would deepen operational overlap in areas such as power infrastructure and AI-related computing.
  • A combined Tesla-SpaceX entity would control about 30,221 bitcoin, worth roughly $3.3 billion, making it the fifth-largest public corporate holder of the cryptocurrency.