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Bitcoin slumped on Tuesday to its lowest this year, tumbling as much as 10 per cent to breach $4,300 and taking losses in the world’s best-known digital coin to 25 per cent within a week, according to Reuters.
Other smaller coins also skidded sharply as a broader crypto currency sell-off, said by traders and market makers to be rooted in heavy selling at leveraged Asian exchanges, gathered steam.
The fall followed a sudden plunge last week that shook bitcoin out of a period of relative stability, where prices had hovered around the $6,500 mark for several months.
Bitcoin sunk as far as $4,327, its lowest since October 2017. By mid-afternoon, it was trading around $4,750 on the Bitstamp exchange.
“We’d been waiting for a break-out,” said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro.
“When you have the price moving so steadily you had lots of stop-loss orders building up - and now you are seeing them being liquidated.”