MicroStrategy leads selloff in crypto stocks as Bitcoin unravels
BNN Bloomberg
Cryptocurrency-related stocks plunged in premarket trading Monday as Bitcoin tumbled to its lowest level in 18 months amid a deepening selloff in risk assets and after a crypto lender halted withdrawals from its platform.
MicroStrategy Inc., which over the last two years has amassed more than 129,000 Bitcoin tokens, led the slump, plunging as much as 23 per cent. Other crypto stocks including Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., Riot Blockchain Inc. and Coinbase Global Inc. also saw outsized declines of at least 14 per cent each. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 100 Index, which measures the 100 largest digital assets, sank as much as 14 per cent.
The sharp move lower in Bitcoin came as crypto lender Celsius Network Ltd. said it was pausing withdrawals, swaps and transfers on its platform. Concerns surrounding the sustainability of the high yields offered by the firm have surfaced in recent weeks following the collapse of the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin which promised yields of as much as 20 per cent to depositors.
