Crypto crash live: Bitcoin back up above key milestone, but crypto market below $900B

Elon Musk and his companies Tesla and SpaceX have been sued by an investor for $258bn who claims he was “defrauded” by a Dogecoin “pyramid scheme.”

The investor Kieth Johnson is demanding $86bn in damages as well as tripled damages of $172bn for losses incurred from trading the cryptocurrency since 2019.

You can read more about the lawsuit here.

A staggering 72 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have dropped in value by over 90 per cent from their all-time highs, according to data from CoinGecko assessed by CoinGoLive.

Bitcoin is down by 70 per cent from its November 2021 high value of $69,000 and ethereum is down 78 per cent from its high of around $4,900.

Binance coin, cardano, solana, and polkadot are down between 68 and 88 per cent, while ripple is down by about 91 per cent from its all-time high.

Tesla chief Elon Musk says it ‘makes sense’ to integrate digital payments into Twitter.

The multibillionaire, who has an agreement to purchase Twitter for $44 bn, said that “it would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so it’s easy to send money back and forth.”

“Money is fundamentally digital at this point and has been for a while,” he reportedly said during Twitter’s all-hands meeting.

Volatility in the crypto market is affecting more stablecoins with their market capitalisation sinking to $156.8 bn on Thursday, compared to about $181 billion at the start of May.

Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, saw another round of redemptions with investors pulling out about $1.6 bn in 48 hours from USDT.

The stablecoin also dropped to $0.993 on Wednesday but quickly regained its peg with the US dollar.

“Stablecoin market cap goes hand in hand with sentiment and liquidity in crypto markets, and it’s slightly worrying that USDT appears to see another round of liquidations,” crypto digital asset manager IDEG wrote in a note, according to Reuters.

Bitcoin has dropped by over 7 per cent in the last 24 hours, and has sunk below the $21,000 mark.

The leading cryptocurrency is down by over 30 per cent in the last week, and is currently priced at close to $20,700.

Ethereum has also dropped in value by over 10 per cent in the last day, and is below the $1,100 mark.

Among altcoins, cardano and dogecoin are down by about 7 per cent in the last day, while solana and polkadot have sunk by over 10 per cent during this period.

The overall crypto market has dropped in value by nearly 7 per cent in the last 24 hours, and is valued at just under $900 bn.

In the middle of all the market chaos, payments firm Circle has launched a new stablecoin that will be pegged to the euro.

The aptly-named Euro Coin (EUROC) follows Circle’s other stablecoin success USD Coin (USDC), which is currently the world’s fourth most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap.

“Circle has set industry-leading standards for moving financial value across the internet with USDC,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle.

“There is clear market demand for a digital currency denominated in euros, the world’s second most traded currency after the U.S. dollar. With USDC and Euro Coin, Circle is helping to unlock a new era of fast, inexpensive, secure and interoperable value exchange worldwide.”

Euro Coin will be available from 30 June.

CoinMarketCap has released its latest analysis into the bitcoin price crash, which saw it plunge to yearly lows on Wednesday.

The leading price index, which is owned by the crypto exchange Binance, looks at metrics like trading volume, momentum, and the cryptocurrency’s correlation to traditional stock markets like Nasdaq 100.

One interesting trend is that large-scale holders, known as whales, appear to have been accumulating bitcoin throughout this downturn.

“There is a positive netflow of 71.95k BTC which signals accumulation from large players,” the analysis notes.

“These are the group of holders that usually represent the true believers in the technology and the ones that will be willing to hold the ups and downs of the token. Since they are in it for the vision of the project, they will take greater risks.”

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, whose bold bitcoin strategy has placed the software firm in the firing line of crypto critics, has once again asseted his conviction in the cryptocurrency.

“Bitcoin is the antidote to chaos,” he tweets.

You can read more about MicroStrategy’s bitcoin gamble here.

More analysis of market indicators suggest - but don’t necessarily mean - that bitcoin may be close to the bottom of this price cycle.

Kevin Svenson has revisited a relative strength index (RSI) analysis he made in April, noting that the latest price crash means the target set has been reached.

“Does this mean the bottom is in?” he wrote on Twitter. “Not necessarily. But it means we are close.”

A day after announcing 2,000 new job openings at Binance, the boss of the cryptocurrency exchange has offered more thoughts on the latest bitcoin price crash.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has been doing the rounds of US news networks, appearing on CNBC, Bloomberg and others to explain the impact the downturn has had.

“While lots of projects and exchanges are going to struggle through the bear market, many will come back stronger than before. Those that fail honestly, will start new projects and bring critical learnings from this experience. This is how an industry grow,” he said.

“Even though we have the benefit of experience from previous cycles, we are not immune to this cycle either. We will be doing some deep self-inflection to better prepare for the next bull market.”