Bitcoin fell below $ 25,000 this Monday, his lowest level in 18 monthsas investors shunned risky assets as global markets plummeted.

The most popular cryptocurrency in the world it fell by about 10 percent to reach $ 24,692 in London morning trading, hitting a record last seen in December 2020.

So, the value of bitcoin fell by 45.26% in the yearand 63.24% from the all-time high reached last November, when it hit $ 69,000.

According to experts, cryptocurrencies are seeing it is affected by the increase in interest rates undertaken by the various central banks, which have tightened their monetary policies to control inflation.

Since the last hike announced by the US Federal Reserve (Fed), bitcoin has lost 36.28% of its value on May 4th.

Bitcoin has remained stable at $ 30,000 since mid-May, after days before plunging to a December 2020 lows (around $ 25,000) after the steep decline of terraUSD, a “stablecoin” that has maintained parity with the dollar through a complex linked algorithm. a luna, an unsupported cryptocurrency.

Ether, the second best-known cryptocurrency on the market, also fell 9.71% this Monday to $ 1,332.515.

The reconfiguration of the cryptocurrency market

The cryptocurrency market is facing correction of over 60% since Novemberand, a scenario in which both the industry and its users reconfigure their expectations, and in which the time of high returns seems to have given way to the survival of valuable and not merely speculative projects, after almost two years of strong growth and adoption.

The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and the rest of cryptocurrencies, reached $ 1.06 billion this weekend, nearly 65% ​​less than the $ 3 billion it was worth just eight months ago. .

The most affected are the so-called altcoins – those cryptocurrencies that are not BTC – which in recent months have fallen by 70, 80 and even 90%, in particular projects related to decentralized finance (DeFi), games and NFT (Token No Fungible, of his initials in English).

The cause of this phenomenon lies the end of the “easy money” policy. that the main central banks of the world have promoted between 2020 and 2021 to get out of the Covid-19 crisis, to which is now added the increase in energy prices and foodstuffs in the world due to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

With information from AFP, EFE and Télam.