Bitcoin falls below $20,000 as it moves towards biggest quarterly drop since 2011

Bitcoin plunged below $20,000 today as it hurtles towards its biggest quarterly drop in more than a decade.

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency plummeted 4.35% to about $19,160 and is down 58% in the second quarter of 2022.

It tumbled around 68% in the third quarter of 2011 during its very early stages when its price fell from around $15 at the start of the quarter to about $5 in the end. 

This was a far cry from its all-time high price of near $69,000 in November last year. Bitcoin is down about 70% from this peak. 

The bitcoin price drop today “could suggest an extended bear market is on the horizon,” said Marcus Sotiriou, Analyst at the UK based digital asset broker GlobalBlock.

The crypto industry has suffered a severe downturn this year that has seen the prices of major cryptocurrencies crash in a feared “crypto winter.”

Major crypto firms have faced liquidity issues including major crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which went into liquidation yesterday. Some, like Coinbase, the biggest crypto exchange in the US, have resorted to laying off staff to manage costs.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried blamed the Federal Reserve in the US for the crypto crash, as the central bank has hiked interest rates to tackle soaring inflation.

“The core driver of this has been the Fed,” the billionaire CEO of the crypto exchange said to NPR earlier this month.

“Literally, markets are scared,” he said. “People with money are scared.”