Bitcoin fell more than 12 percent Thursday night.
The decline came hours after the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk-controlled SpaceX reduced its bitcoin holdings by $373 million in 2022 and 2021, and later sold them all.
Musk has previously characterized himself as a supporter of cryptocurrency.
This is one of the most brutal minute-by-minute sell-offs we’ve seen in Bitcoin history, analyst Ryan Rasmussen at Bitwise Asset Management tells CNBC.
Current speculation is that the sell-off is being driven by Elon Musk/SpaceX, he continues, but he described the dramatic decline as “short-lived and largely led by small investors.”
He got in
In 2022, another Musk-led company, Tesla, announced that about 75 percent of its bitcoin holdings had been sold after investing $1.5 billion in the major cryptocurrency.
After dropping to 25,000, bitcoin price has gradually recovered and is now standing at 26,450 — which is more than 7 percent down in the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin was already under pressure in Thursday’s trading, after the Federal Reserve released minutes of its previous interest rate meeting on Wednesday night US time. There, the central bank constantly expresses concern about inflation
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