Bitcoin and other digital currencies plunged yesterday, a slide likely to stoke speculation about the durability of the boom in cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin slumped as much as 8.7 percent, the most since early August, while digital coins, such as ether, also tumbled.
The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index at one point slid more than 6 percent.
Photo: Reuters
“Conditions are very massively overbought and bound for a correction,” said Vijay Ayyar, head of business development with crypto exchange Luno in Singapore. “So I don’t think it’s unusual frankly.”
Even with the retreat, bitcoin has more than doubled this year and until recently was knocking on the door of the record high of US$19,511 set in 2017.
Crypto believers tout purchases by retail investors, institutions and even billionaires, as well as the search for a hedge against US dollar weakness amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as reasons why the boom can last.
Skeptics argue that the cryptocurrency’s famed volatility portends a repeat of what happened three years ago, when a bubble burst spectacularly.
Some see signs of retail investors piling in to chase momentum for fast gains, storing up an inevitable reckoning.
Bitcoin dipped 5.4 percent as of 3:07pm in Tokyo to about US$17,856, while ether was more than 8 percent lower at about US$528.
Concern about the possibility of tighter US cryptorules, as well as profit-taking, help explain yesterday’s price drop across most major digital assets, said Ryan Rabaglia, global head of trading at the OSL brokerage in Hong Kong.
“It’s also not unusual to see a short-term pullback following periods of significant, accelerated gains as traders look to take profits before resetting once volatility subsides,” he said. “Once the dust settles, we’re back to business as usual, with all medium to long-term bullish indicators still in play.”
Proponents of digital assets say the current focus on cryptocurrencies compared with three years ago is different because of growing institutional interest, for instance from the likes of Fidelity Investments and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Just this week, Van Eck Associates Corp launched a bitcoin exchange-traded note on the Deutsche Boerse Xetra exchange.
Last month, PayPal Holdings Inc said it would allow its customers access to cryptocurrencies.
There is also a buzz around ethereum, the most-actively used blockchain in the world, which is set for a network upgrade that would allow it to process a similar number of transactions as Mastercard Inc and Visa Inc. The shift to the new system could curb the total supply of ether, whose price has quadrupled so far this year.
Ayyar said he expects bitcoin to stabilize and achieve all-time highs, but added that would be followed by a larger drop in the cryptocurrency.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six