Bitcoin Slides Below $40,000, Ether Tumbles Amid China Restrictions and Elon Musk’s Tweets

The declines in the two most traded cryptocurrencies were sparked last week by Musk's reversal on Tesla taking Bitcoin as payment.

By Reuters | Updated: 19 May 2021 11:42 IST

Bitcoin Slides Below $40,000, Ether Tumbles Amid China Restrictions and Elon Musk’s Tweets

Bitcoin fell more than 10 percent after Musk tweeted his decision to suspend its use

Highlights

Ether dropped about 15 percent to $2,875.36 (roughly Rs. 2 lakhs)
Use of Bitcoin to buy Tesla's electric vehicles highlighted a dichotomy
Some Tesla investors have been critical about the way Bitcoin is "mined"

Bitcoin's volatile week-long slide saw it tumble to below the $40,000 (roughly Rs. 29 lakhs) mark on Wednesday as news of further restrictions on cryptocurrency transactions in China added to earlier concerns sparked by Tesla boss Elon Musk's tweets.

Bitcoin (price in India), the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, fell about 9 percent to as low as $38,940.04 (roughly Rs. 28.4 lakhs), even slipping below a key 200-day moving average. It is now down 40 percent from the year's high of $64,895.22 (roughly Rs. 47.3 lakhs) on April 14.

Ether (price in India), the coin linked to the Ethereum blockchain network, dropped about 15 percent to $2,875.36 (roughly Rs. 2 lakhs).

[Sponsored] Samsung Galaxy S24: The Ultimate Camera Phone With Smarter On-Device AI

The declines in the two most traded cryptocurrencies were sparked last week by Musk's reversal on Tesla taking Bitcoin as payment, followed by other tweets that caused confusion over whether the carmaker had shed its holdings of the currency.

China's announcement on Tuesday that it is banning financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions, coupled with a warning to investors against speculative crypto trading, seemed to have exacerbated the selling.

Dogecoin Co-Creator Says Cryptocurrency Was Created in 'Two Hours'

© Thomson Reuters 2021

What is the best phone under Rs. 30,000 in India right now? We discussed this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Cryptocurrency Prices across Indian exchanges

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.