Bitcoin fell from its all-time high two days ago after the launch of the first US bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund, causing cryptocurrency prices to plummet today. The price of the world's most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization went down 4% to $62,740.
According to CoinDesk, Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency and the unit linked to the Ethereum network, was down over 2% to $4,112. Cardano prices dropped nearly 3% to $2.16, while dogecoin prices dropped 3% to $0.24. Other digital tokens such as Shiba Inu, Binance Coin, Litecoin, Uniswap, and XRP have all had price drops in the previous 24 hours, but Solana is up over 10%.
Bitcoin rebounded to a new high of $66,974 on Wednesday, following a six-month decline from its previous high of $64,895, propelled by the launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF. Investors are betting that the long-awaited debut of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) would result in more investment from both regular and institutional investors.
However, JPMorgan analysts questioned if the bump to bitcoin's price from the ProShares ETF, which trades under the ticker BITO, would be long-lasting. "Will the launch of BITO alone result in a big increase in new cash flowing into bitcoin? Given the plethora of investment options available to bitcoin investors, we have our doubts "According to Reuters, they wrote in a note.
The ETF does not invest in Bitcoin directly. Instead, it invests in the Bitcoin futures market. Someone with an old-school brokerage account, for example, can buy the ETF without needing to open a crypto trading account.
(With inputs from agencies)