Free fall! Bitcoin slips 7% to fall below $65,000-mark

At 07:03 pm IST, the cryptocurrency was trading at $64,781, recording a slip of 7.03 per cent.

Bitcoin slipped 7 percent on April 2 to fall below $65,000 as demand eases for dedicated US exchange-traded funds and bets retreat on a lax Federal Reserve policy.

At 07:03 pm IST, the cryptocurrency was trading at $64,781, recording a slip of 7.03 per cent.

The digital rally of this year is beginning to lose steam and it was the first time since March 24 that the digital asset went below the $65,000-mark.

US manufacturing recorded a growth for the first time in one and half years in March on production rebound and jump in new orders. This has tempered expectations for a potential rate cut by the US central bank, boosting treasury yields and the dollar.

The changed views about the Fed are having an impact “across crypto, where there has been a selloff as the week gets underway — no sector is unaffected, especially those where prices have outperformed Bitcoin over last six months, for example memes,” said Stefan von Haenisch, head of trading at OSL SG Pte.

The cryptocurrency has slipped about 10% since hitting a peak of $73,798 in mid-March. A flood of daily inflows into US spot-Bitcoin ETFs has eased, weighing on the largest digital asset. On April 1, investors pulled a net $86 million from the batch of 10 products, which have attracted about $12 billion since going live on January 11, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

According to reports, the global cryptocurrency market cap has plunged around 6 percent to $2.52 trillion in the past 24 hours.

Other cryptocurrencies have also recorded a fall. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, fell over 6.74 percent to $3,269.72, Solana slipped 8.1 percent, BNB 4.71 percent, Dogecoin 10.03 percent, and Shiba Inu dipped 8.37 percent.

The shares of Robinhood Markets, a Nasdaq-listed company for stock trading and investments, also declined 2.86 percent to $18.86. The firm also deals in cyptocurrency-related investments.

With inputs from Bloomberg