Bitcoin Slides Below $40,000, Ether Tumbles

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).

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.

© Thomson Reuters 2021