Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have dropped in value over the last 24 hours following an unexpectedly high UK inflation figure for March of more than 10%.
BTC lost 4% in value over 24 hours to below $29k at the time of writing (just after 7am UK).
The overall crypto market fell 5% in the same period to $1.21 trillion.
The inflation figure led to speculation that the Bank of England could hike interest rates by 25 basis points in May.
Pseudonymous crypto Twitter trader @52kskew also highlighted an unusually large sell order of 16,000 BTC on Binance – worth more than $450 million at current prices – which preceded the fall and may have influenced the market.
A week ago BTC topped $30,000 for the first time since June last year. The flagship cryptocurrency was below $17k at the start of the year.
It appears unaffected by the market turmoil exacerbated by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank more than a month ago.
Meanwhile Ether (ETH) has dropped below $2,000 for the first time in almost a week, while every other major coin was trading in red for the last 24 hours.
Cryptocurrency shorts
Auction house Sotheby’s is to sell off the NFT digital artwork collection from collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. It will begin with seven NFTs in the ‘grails’ collection in May, described as “some of the highest quality and rarest works”.
Coinflow Labs, a Web3 payment stack provider, has raised $1.45 million in pre-seed funding led by Jump Crypto and Reciprocal Ventures.
Web3 notification platform Yoz Labs has raised $3.5m led by Electric Capital for scalable messaging rails which would enable developers to send immediate on-chain notifications directly to users.
The second NFT collection of former United States President Donald Trump sold out within two days. Featuring 47,000 Trump digital collectibles priced at $99 each, it has earned him $4.65m.
Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the 23,400 coins is at $1.21 trillion at the time of writing (7am UK), a 5% decrease in the last 24 hours.
For round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments, click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.