The price of bitcoin has fallen below $20,000 as a brutal selloff in cryptocurrencies deepened.
Bitcoin BTCUSD, -7.70% fell momentarily to $18,739.50 and stayed below $20,000 on Saturday, according to CoinDesk, losing 72% of its value from its high in November.
Concerns about the Federal Reserve’s actions to tame higher-than-expected inflation have pushed both stocks and cryptocurrencies into a bear market. Big names in the industry, including Coinbase Global Inc COIN, +0.33%, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., have recently announced job cuts.
“It will be a lot of pain for a lot of investors,” said Yuya Hasegawa, a market analyst at Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank Inc. People will lose confidence in the crypto market as a whole, but seasoned crypto investors and those who believe in its long-term prospects will see an opportunity to buy at discounted prices, he said.
Ether ETHUSD, -9.93%, another major cryptocurrency, fell below $1,000, briefly reaching $975.35 on Saturday, according to CoinDesk, its lowest level since January 2021.
Bitcoin’s slide from its record high of $67,802 in November has contributed to a roughly $2 trillion wipeout in the broader market. Crypto’s total market capitalization, which peaked in November at nearly $3 trillion, stood at around $846 billion Saturday, according to data provider CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin traded around the $30,000 mark for most of May before dropping sharply again in June after a fresh inflation shock and worries about rising U.S. interest rates. Investors have been unloading assets seen as risky, such as cryptocurrencies and technology stocks.
An expanded version of this story appears on WSJ.com.