Bitcoin drops to five-month low

Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has fallen more than 9 per cent in the past 24 hours, dropping below $8,000 (£10,307) for the first time since June.

Currently standing at $7,471.52 (£5,796.93) in afternoon trading, the price of Bitcoin dropped by 5 per cent in just 5 minutes between 12:40 and 12:45 (UTC).

Crypto commentators are currently reticent to describe the current state of Bitcoin as a bear market but consistent with the coin’s innate volatility.

Many still expect the price of Bitcoin to increase in the long term with concerns of a global recession and next year’s halving. In 2020 the reward for mining new blocks of the crypto will halve again, meaning miners receive 50 per cent fewer bitcoins for verifying transactions.

Other cryptos are down in trading. At the time of writing Ether (ETC) is down 10.63 per cent, Litecoin (LTC) is down by 13 per cent and Ripple XRP has dropped by 14.74 per cent.

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