Cryptocurrencies opened in a sea of red on Friday morning, and little improvement was seen throughout the day. The price of Bitcoin fell below $21,400 again last week, wiping out its gains from better-than-expected inflation data. Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital (MARA), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), and Hut 8 Mining (HUT) were all down more than 12% on the day. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) dropped 11.3% by the closing bell as its SEC investigation heats up. And heavy bitcoin investor MicroStrategy (MSTR) saw its stock drop nearly 13% by the end of Friday. In the wake of July’s softer-than-expected CPI data, bitcoin almost reached $25,000 last week. It fell back to $21,300 by early Friday, its lowest level since the end of July, due to Fed plans for continued rate hikes and discussions regarding crypto risk and regulations found in Wednesday’s minutes.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency dragged the rest of the digital asset markets along with it. By Friday afternoon, Ethereum, which is ranked No. 2 by market capitalization, had lost its gains from last week and was trading around $1,700. Despite this, Ethereum has been holding above its July level due to its anticipated merging to a proof-of-stake consensus by the end of this month.
