Bitcoin prices continued to struggle and dropped briefly below $40,000 over the last 24 hours for the first time since August. The world’s largest cryptocurrency recouped some losses, however, was still trading lower as it was down 1.5% to $42,036.5. Bitcoin is up 42% this year, though, much below its record high level of near $65,000.
Ether, the coin linked to ethereum blockchain and the second largest crypto, was down 5% to $2,853. Cardano prices slipped 4% to $2.04 whereas dogecoin crashed 2% to $0.20. The performance of tokens including XRP, Solana, Uniswap, Stellar and Litecoin also declined over the past 24 hours.
In a Tuesday discussion on cryptocurrencies, US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said past instances of banks and other firms offering private forms of money have failed, reported Bloomberg. Gensler reiterated that US securities rules give his agency great authority over digital tokens. He also said there are some ‘gaps’ in oversight of digital tokens that Congress could help close, such as regulating crypto exchanges.
Meanwhile, a cryptocurrency data network, Pyth crypto-data network showed a roughly 90% plunge in Bitcoin on Monday, a glitch that did not show up on other platforms. “Engineers are continuing to investigate the cause and a full report is in the works,” Pyth network informed in a tweet.
Cryptocurrency investment products and funds saw inflows for a fifth consecutive week, data from digital asset manager CoinShares showed. Crypto inflows amounted to $41.6 million for the week ended Sept. 17, with bitcoin getting the bulk of inflows at $15.3 million, and ether products garnering $6.6 million.
Bitcoin has suffered the most from negative investor sentiment with inflows in only three of the last 16 weeks, the report said. Overall, bitcoin inflows for the year amounted to $4.2 billion.