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After soaring to more than $52,000 in value just last week, Bitcoin prices have fallen to around $45,000 on Wednesday as El Salvador officially established the major coin as a form of legal tender.
The almost 14% dip in Bitcoin price was mirrored by cryptocurrency prices across the board – with falling values of XRP Ripple, Ethereum and Cardano contributing to a $400billion wipeout in the crypto market.
This follows a period of renewed confidence in the coin as it surged toward a much-anticipated return to a one trillion dollar cap and its $64,000 peak reached in April 2021.
Here are the latest prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and more today as the cryptocurrency crash continues.
How much is Bitcoin worth today?
As of 8.45am, Bitcoin’s price today (8 September) was fluctuating around $45,362.73 or £32,963.05 according to CoinDesk.
While the cryptocurrency’s market cap stood at around $946.08 billion or £693.45bn on 23 August, it had fallen to $853.25bn by Wednesday morning.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin had shed $7,044.33 in the last 24 hours – down 13.44%.
On Tuesday morning at just before 4am, the coin had been trading at $52,722.34 or roughly £45,327.24.
The dramatic Bitcoin dip collided with El Salvador’s controversial acceptance of the coin as a form of legal tender – with President Nayib Bukele’s appreciation for Bitcoin being met with some confusion and protest in the country.
El Salvador’s digital wallet, Chivo, was hit with technical difficulties and pulled into downtime on Tuesday after it buckled under user demand and registrations.
Citizens of El Salvador were encouraged to sign up to the wallet and claim $30 in free BTC upon downloading, but the app proved difficult to download on Apple, Huawei and Google Play stores.
Geoff McCabe, chairman of decentralized payment ecosystem, Divi Project and member of Brock Pierce’s Delegation, who met with the El Salvadorian government to consult on the implementation of Bitcoin as legal tender, commented: “This is a seminal moment in crypto history and important that it succeeds.
“It will confirm Bitcoin’s (and crypto more generally) utility and its power to return financial and economic sovereignty to nation-states and the individual.”
Mr McCabe added: “Success in El Salvador will likely trigger a domino effect.
“People are tired of the oversized power of the US dollar and of the bullying that has gone on for decades.
“The Delegation has been contacted by 20-30 countries who want to understand more about what’s going on in El Salvador and how they can replicate it in their own country.”
When was the last major crypto crash?
In June, the Chinese Government cracked down on considerable crypto mining operations taking place in the Sichuan province and demanded that Chinese banks and payment channels stop supporting decentralised and anonymous crypto transactions.
This saw Bitcoin prices tumble to below $30,000 in a dramatic plummet from its soaring success.
The cryptocurrency has continued to rise and fall as other global administrations and regulators mull legislation to curb increased crypto activity often attributed to laundering and crime.
Following the Chinese state’s move, countries like South Korea also pledged to tackle the rise in money laundering taking place via cryptocurrency, while the Metropolitan Police announced that it had successfully closed in on a huge UK cryptocurrency money-laundering operation.
July saw the Met seize a cryptocurrency operation valued at £180million in the UK’s largest cryptocurrency seizure to date.
In turn, cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as Binance have been feeling the heat across the world as regulators and governments have started to pay close attention to the operations of such platforms in the wake of the global crackdown on crypto.
The result of this saw Bitcoin’s highest prices sliced in half in June, with the coin struggling to break out of the low to mid $30k price range until it received a welcome boost from Tesla founder Elon Musk in his appearance at major Bitcoin conference in July.
The bullish rise and increased confidence in Bitcoin will likely see it remain at prices around $50k threshold but with increased resistance as it looks ahead to regaining the $14,000 between its current price and April’s all time high.
What are the prices of Ethereum, Cardano and Ripple today?
With all coins tending to move in tandem with Bitcoin, Ethereum was trading down by more than 15% on the last 24 hours at $3,284.50 or
£2,386.08 at 9am on Wednesday (8 September).
A popular cryptocurrency synonymous with the rising crypto trend of NFTs, Ethereum has an all time high of $4,382.73 which it reached in May’s cryptocurrency boom, but it has struggled to return to this peak since.
The hype surrounding popular memecoin Dogecoin had appeared to diminish recently as new altcoins took centre stage.
Dogecoin was trading -19% on the last 24 hours at $0.241361 (£0.175340) on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, Cardano (ADA) prices are fluctuating around $2.28 (£1.65), XRP Ripple at $1.06 (£0.767609) and Stellar at $0.313361 (£0.227646)
as of 9.15am on Wednesday.
XRP and Stellar were the main cryptocurrencies leading the latest market crash, with values of both down over 20% on the last 24 hours.
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