On Friday, bitcoin fell to as low as $81 104, the lowest since November 21, while the United States Dollar gained after former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh was selected as the next Fed Chair. Some investors and \u200ctraders are concerned he might tighten up on cash in the \u200bfinancial system.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Warsh has called for regime change at the central bank and wants, among other things, a smaller Fed balance sheet. Bitcoin \u2060and other \u200dcryptocurrencies have been regarded as beneficiaries of a large balance sheet, \u200dhaving tended to rally while the Fed greased money markets with liquidity, a support for \u200cspeculative \u200cassets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brian Jacobsen, Chief \u2060Economist at Annex Wealth Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, said the Fed’s “bloated \u200dbalance sheet combined with heavy-handed bank regulation” had kept liquidity trapped on Wall Street instead \u200cof \u200cflowing to Main Street, helping fuel bubbles in assets such as bonds, crypto, metals and meme stocks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ether also fell 11.76% to $2 387.77 on Saturday afternoon. Cryptocurrencies have been struggling for direction since tumbling last year, having been left behind by big rallies \u2060in gold and \u2060stocks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Sometimes these \u200bprice adjustments feed on themselves,” Jacobsen said, adding that Friday\u2019s abrupt drop had reminded people of the risks. He said it was “possible, if not likely, that we see more \u200dselling over the next few days.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cryptos are having a rough time in what was once hoped to be a golden era of flows and friendly regulation under President \u200bDonald Trump. Market-leading bitcoin has lost a third \u200dof its value since striking record highs in October last year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13322,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23158","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value, was down by 6.53% at $78 719.63 at 19h48 CAT on Saturday, continuing its decline from the \u200cprevious session.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value, was down by 6.53% at $78 719.63 at 19h48 CAT on Saturday, continuing its decline from the \u200cprevious session.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26215,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23158\/revisions\/26215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}