In this episode of the BeInCrypto video news show, host Jessica Walker discusses the significant retracement that bitcoin (BTC) took this week, how it has affected crypto markets, and how significantly invested companies have reacted.
The price of BTC dropped significantly on Monday, Feb. 22, reaching a local low of $47,622. However, the following day, Feb. 23, the price dropped another 18%, from Monday’s high of $55,374 to another low of $44,951.
In light of the rough start to the week, hodlers saw some relief on Wednesday, Feb. 24, as the price rose from the previous day’s low back to support around $50,000. It currently trades around $51,000.
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Broader Market Effects
As the largest cryptocurrency, by far, in terms of market cap, naturally, any large BTC movements are sure to reverberate across crypto markets. This week was no exception.
Data from Bybt shows that several $5.64 billion in cryptocurrency across 645,278 positions on exchanges were liquidated. Some $2.41 billion worth of BTC was liquidated along with $1.35 billion worth of Ethereum (ETH) and nearly $200 million of Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP) each.
Stocks of companies whose portfolios have large holdings of BTC were also drastically affected. Tesla made a $1.5 billion BTC acquisition on Feb. 8. On Tuesday, Feb. 23, its stock dropped around 16% to $619, the lowest it had traded since September. Similarly, MicroStrategy saw its stock fall nearly 50% from its peak on Feb. 9. The company holds 90,531 BTC.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said that Tesla’s stock price had become directly tied to the value of BTC. According to Ives:
“Musk is now tied to the bitcoin story in the eyes of the Street.”
He added that despite Tesla making $1 billion in paper profit since the investment, this week demonstrated that owning BTC comes with added risks.
Hodling Companies Still Buying
Despite these market movements, several prominent hodling companies have doubled down on their BTC bets.
On Feb. 23, Square Inc. announced that it had purchased an additional 3,318 BTC, which amounted to $170 million at the time. The company first purchased BTC last October, with an acquisition of 4,709 BTC for $50 million. The financial payment company is run by crypto enthusiast and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
The same day MicroStrategy’s loss had been highlighted by crypto analytics firm skew, CEO Michael Saylor announced that the company had purchased an additional 19,452 bitcoins for $1.026 billion. This continues to be MicroStrategy’s approach since it first started acquiring BTC in August last year.
When speaking with CNBC, the day before, Saylor said:
“If you want to save your money for the next decade, it’s logical to do one transaction, put all your money in #btc and wait for a decade and wait for it to go up.”
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