UPDATE (March 9, 15:30 UTC): After the publication of this story, bitcoin fell further, hitting two-month lows below $7,700. Dumping by a Ponzi scheme played a mighty role in the selloff, market sources said. Read more here.
The price of bitcoin has fallen to a one-month low below $7,900, amid a wider sell-off in the global financial markets.
As of writing, the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is changing hands at $7,837, the lowest in the past 30 days and a 10 percent decline on a 24-hour basis, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
The price decline comes as the global financial markets suffer a wider sell-off, with Brent crude oil dropping over 30 percent on Sunday, its biggest single-day decline since 1991.
Underscoring the severity of the global flight from assets perceived as risky is the drop in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield below 0.5 percent for the first time ever, down over two percentage points from a year ago.
Bitcoin’s sudden price dip also comes as the network’s computing power and mining difficulty (a measure of competition among miners) are both expected to reach a new high in just five hours.
With more processing power chasing a less-valuable asset, mining farms that are using old mining equipment are in for an even tougher time.
Data from the mining pool Poolin shows the most widely used mining computers such as the AntMiner S9 and Avalon 851 are all at a critical breakeven point, meaning they are not generating any daily profits at bitcoin’s current price, amid all-time-high mining difficulty.
