The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has dipped to a one-month low under the $7,900 level, in the midst of a broader market selloff in the world's financial markets.
The price of the biggest digital money in the world in terms of market capitalization is changing hands at $7,837, its lowest in the last 30 days and a 10 percent drop on a 24-hour rotation, CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index showed.
The price retreat comes as global financial markets are battered by the selloff, with Brent crude oil sliding more than 30 percent early Monday, its biggest one-day fall since 1991.
Bitcoin's price dropped by seven percent in the last 24 hours, liquidating over $185 million worth of long contracts. The decline comes hours before the much anticipated weekly settlement of the crypto.
With many hours left on the session towards a weekly close, Datamish.com data show that $185 million worth of long contracts were liquidated, from 267 positions. Data from researchers at Skew show that BitMEX alone saw liquidations of around $91 million within a single hour.
Bitcoin wrapped up the week at $8,024, a surprising 9.91 percent decline and a new weekly low not witnessed since January 13 when the virtual currency settled at $7,946. The abrupt correction occurred as the DOW, S&P 500 and oil futures plunged as investor jitters over the economic effects of the coronavirus continue to escalate.
Apparently, Bitcoin price has not been spared from the pounding inflicted upon bond markets and at the time of posting the crypto is on a free fall under $8,000 to record its new low.
For weeks, market observers warned that a decline under the critical support at $9,400 would set the stage to a strong downside move and the March 7 dumping at $9,150 catalyzed the beginning of the pullback.
As the Bitcoin price fell from $8,633 to its current new low in less than an hour, it led to a series of buy liquidations, causing the electronic currency market to retreat significantly within a short duration of time.
Bitcoin's unexpected price crash also comes as the network's computing capacity and mining difficulty (a gauge of competition among digital currency miners) are both seen to hit new highs in just five hours.
Meanwhile, other digital assets like Ethereum saw a bigger sell-off in the same period. ETH fell by 13 percent on the day, from $237.9 to $211.25. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) plunged 18 percent, and XRP shed 12.5 percent of its value. The overall virtual currency market cap is currently pegged at $224 billion and Bitcoin's dominance rate is at 64 percent.
