Bitcoin drops below $21,000 briefly as crypto sell-off continues

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $21,000 on Tuesday in Asia before bouncing back slightly, continuing its plunge as investors sold off risk assets.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell nearly 14% in the past 24 hours, while ethereum tumbled more than 12% over the same period, according to Coinbase data.
Crypto assets were hammered on Monday as trading platforms such as Celsius and Binance stopped withdrawals, and some companies cut jobs.

Celsius said withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts would be halted because of “extreme market conditions” and that the move was meant to “stabilize liquidity and operations.”

“We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations,” the company said in a memo.

Meanwhile, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, halted bitcoin withdrawals for over three hours “due to a stuck transaction causing a backlog.”

The market capitalization for cryptocurrencies slipped below $1 trillion on Monday for the first time since February 2021, data from CoinMarketCap showed. Around $200 billion has been wiped off the market in recent days.



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