Bitcoin dipped sharply on Thursday evening, crashing by as much as 9% to just around $26,000.
As per Coin Metrics data, the cryptocurrency last traded at $26,593.68, reflecting a downsurge of greater than 8%.
The plunge in bitcoin came just hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX, which is headed by Elon Musk, noted the worth of its bitcoin holdings by a net of $373 million in 2021 and 2022 and that the space travel firm had sold the digital currency.
“This is one of the most brutal minute-by-minute selloffs we’ve seen in the history of bitcoin,” Ryan Rasmussen, a researcher at Bitwise Asset Management, mentioned to CNBC. “The current speculation is it’s an Elon Musk/SpaceX-driven selloff.” He also reported that this recent sharp drop is “short-sighted and largely retail-driven.”
In 2022, Tesla, which Musk also heads as CEO, said that it sold about 75% of its bitcoin holdings after investing $1.5 billion in the flagship cryptocurrency.