Bitcoin has had a weak last 24 hours. From having been traded around $13,200 on Wednesday, the price has dropped steadily since then.
Early on Thursday morning (CEST), the bitcoin price was as low as $11,163, according to numbers from Bitstamp.
This is a decline of over 15 percent.
“Welcome to bitcoin. This type of large fluctuation and correction is what we have learned to expect from the bitcoin price”, says crypto expert Totte Löfström to Trijo News.
The decline of the bitcoin price also came after Jerome Powell, chairman of the American central bank Federal Reserve, expressed “serious concern” about Facebook’s upcoming cryptocurrency libra, CNBC reports.
$31 billion wiped out
Bitcoin’s total market cap has also dropped from $233 to $202 billion – a decrease of $31 billion.
Bitcoin currently represents 65.4 percent of the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies, according to Coinmarketcap.
Since the bottom, however, the price has bounced back slightly and a bitcoin is trading at around $11,450 at the time of writing.
“It is now likely that the price stabilizes slightly and then continue its journey upwards. You often hear the advice that you should ‘buy the dips’, so if you are fearless enough to take the risk, it is probably a good opportunity for that right now”, says crypto expert Totte Löfström.