THE NEW YORK TIMES: Cryptocurrencies fell again on Wednesday, extending a rout that has dragged down digital currencies more steeply than many other markets. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, traded at about $21,000 early on Wednesday, down 4 percent over the past 24 hours, 30 percent over the past week and 55 percent so far this year, according to CoinDesk.
Wall Street analysts have been keeping a close eye on cryptocurrencies to see if they might avoid the slowdown traditional assets have experienced. (The S&P 500 is in a bear market, down about 20 percent this year.) The pullback in the crypto market, however, illustrates the precariousness of the structure built around these risky and unregulated digital assets.
Stock prices of crypto companies have cratered, retail traders are fleeing and industry executives are predicting a prolonged slump that could put more companies in jeopardy, The New York Times’s David Yaffe-Bellany and Erin Griffith report.
“The tide has gone out in crypto, and we’re seeing that many of these businesses and platforms rested on shaky and unsustainable foundations,” said Lee Reiners, a former Federal Reserve official who teaches at Duke University Law School. “The music has stopped.” » | Eshe Nelson | Wednesday, June 15, 2022
