Blockchain
Bitcoin (BTC) Drops to $60,000 as Mt. Gox Fall Risk Looms
Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $60,000 during European morning trading on Wednesday, a 4% drop in the last 24 hours. BTC has been hit hardest amid a slide among major cryptocurrencies. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), has fallen nearly 3.3%. The declines came after U.S. spot BTC ETFs snapped a five-day streak of inflows, recording $13 million in outflows on Tuesday. There are also concerns about further selling pressure from distributions from defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox. “Mt Gox is also expected to release this week,” QCP Capital said. “This glut of up to 140,000 BTC is expected to continue to weigh on markets, especially as the exact release schedule is unknown at this time.”
Election-themed meme tokens in the US are taking a hit, with several prices down nearly 95% from their peak. Solana’s Jeo Boden (BODEN), a play on Joe Biden, has fallen 70% over the past week, according to CoinGecko data. BODEN is now down 80% over the past 30 days, and is back to levels last seen in early March when it was newly issued. Donald Trump-themed tokens have also fallen, despite Trump’s election chances increasing after the debate. The political finance sector (PoliFi) has contracted 11% over the past 24 hours, contrary to expectations of a rally after the June 27 debate. Austin Freimuth, research analyst at Messari, said that the significant event could be Trump’s selection of his running mate, if that triggers the creation of new meme coins.
The cryptocurrency industry is starting a significant growth phase and is in a much better position than it was two years agoinvestment bank Architect Partners said in a quarterly report released last week. The cryptocurrency industry has risen to more than $750 billion in value in the first half of the year, the company said. The report described cryptocurrencies as “children of the Internet” and said they “surpass the value of the Internet in the same portion of their respective life cycles.” Cryptocurrencies and the Internet, both disruptive technologies, have very similar characteristics, the report said, noting that the cryptocurrency market is recovering from the so-called crypto winter much faster than the Internet recovered from the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000.