Update: Bitcoin slumped over $9,000 after this aticle was published. It has since recovered to around the $9,000 mark.
Morning Report: Bitcoin’s slide continues as the crypto selloff erases hundreds of billions in value as rumors of fraud and manipulation carry the week’s headlines.
After a staggering 2017, the tokens of the crypto world are having a tough start to 2018. Keeping our timeframe short, over the last 24 hours 98 out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies are down, according to CoinMarketCap. The damage widens as you look at January as a whole.
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And the biggest coin of them all, bitcoin, is no exception to the trend. Bitcoin is off 9.35 percent over the last 24 hours to $9,110, a sum that would have thrilled hodlers in mid-2017, but is off more than 50 percent from the coin’s prior heights.
Gone, at least for now, are the days in which the ascent of bitcoin and its various competitors and compatriots set new records weekly, if not daily. Indeed, hundreds of billions of dollars in value have been shorn from the crypto markets since its late-2017 peak of over $20,000.
So what gives, is a good question to ask. Just as there was no clear reason as to why bitcoin went up, there isn’t one single reason as to why it’s going down. But we can point, at least, to some things that could be impacting the price performance of Satoshi’s coin.
For example, this recent headline: “Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up.” The piece covers legal action, potential fraud, historical fraud, and more. That article’s assertion that price manipulation could have been critical to bitcoin’s rise undercuts its store-of-value proposition; store-of-temporary-and-fraudulently-manipulated-value isn’t quite as good a sales pitch.
And, just sticking to what Techmeme has picked up at the moment, here’s another: “India vows to eliminate use of cryptocurrencies.” That’s a pretty big market, potentially gone. Add in never ending China-based rumors, and rising regulatory action both domestically and abroad, and perhaps Robinhood’s impending charge into the crypto-exchange market looks a bit slack.
Regardless, this is crypto, so expect everything to change roughly by the time you’ve read this.
From The Crunchbase Daily:
Unicorns gorge on record capital inflows
- Investors show little sign of easing back on giant unicorn funding rounds. Last year, they put a record $66 billion into private, venture-backed companies valued at over $1 billion, according to Crunchbase data. At the same time, the number of new unicorns declined some.
- Jeff Immelt, the recently retired CEO and chairman of GE, has joined venture firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as a venture partner. The news follows another high-profile VC firm hire earlier in the week, with General Catalyst bringing on outgoing American Express CEO Ken Chenault.
- PayPal shares fell after former parent company eBay said it has signed up Dutch payments processor Adyen to manage global payments. Adyen, founded in 2006, has raised more than $260 million to date, with a private valuation exceeding $2.3 billion.
- The number of mobile-focused startups raising seed and early stage capital has been trending down, but average round sizes are way up, a Crunchbase News analysis finds. It helps that the space has a history of producing some of the highest exit multiples of any sector.
Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.
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