Bitcoin Breaks Below $30K, Erasing Almost All of 2021's Gains

Bitcoin dropped below $30,000, pushing this week's losses briefly over 17% amid continued profit-taking.

• Per CoinDesk's prior reporting, the recent drop in bitcoin's price is likely due to widespread profit-taking by U.S. and European investors, according to trading activity on leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
• Bitcoin dropped to $29,112 on Coinbase at 0:30 UTC on Thursday, a level reached on Jan. 4 when the leading cryptocurrency started rallying hard to an all-time high of just below $42,000 on Jan. 8.
• At press time, the price of bitcoin was $30,025, down about 15% over the last 24 hours.
• Guggenheim's CIO Scott Minerd, who has said bitcoin should be worth $400,000, said yesterday he thinks bitcoin maybe have topped temporarily, saying that a retrace to $20,000 is possible.
• The continued selling has pushed bitcoin's year-to-date gains below 1%.
• Bulls may be able to pare losses though, according to Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone who told CoinDesk, "Bitcoin appears similar to May-June 2017 price range of $3,000-$2,000 before breaking out higher."