Bitcoin Chaos Continues As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Libra Woes
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets went into meltdown this week, with the bitcoin price suddenly falling off a cliff.
The bitcoin price lost some 15% in a shock sell-off on Tuesday, dragging down the wider bitcoin and crypto market and catching traders, who had hoped the hotly-anticipated Bakkt crypto platform launch would give bitcoin a boost, off-guard.
Now, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has revealed his libra cryptocurrency, which is largely credited with sparking bitcoin's bull run earlier this year, may not launch in 2020, as previously expected.
"Obviously we want to move forward at some point soon [and] not have this take many years to roll out," Zuckerberg told Nikkei Asian Review, a Japanese business newspaper. "But right now I’m really focused on making sure that we do this well."
Facebook's libra has run into opposition around the world as countries, including India, France and the U.S., warn it will undermine their national currencies, with U.S. president Donald Trump launching a blistering attack on libra, bitcoin, and crypto earlier this year.
Bitcoin traders and investors have closely-watched the development of Facebook's libra, which has been adopted as something of a cryptocurrency regulatory bellwether and a tacit endorsement of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology.
"A lot of people have had questions and concerns, and we're committed to making sure that we work through all of those before moving forward," Zuckerberg added.
The bitcoin price lost further ground yesterday, dropping some 5% and dipping below the psychological $8,000 per bitcoin mark.
Bitcoin cash, an offshoot of bitcoin itself, led the cryptocurrency market lower, recording losses for the day of over 5% and taking its weekly decline to almost 30%.
The bitcoin sell-off comes after a muted launch of the New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange's Bakkt crypto platform, which was unveiled last year boasting software giant Microsoft and coffee chain Starbucks among its partners.
Bakkt's platform allows traders and institutional investors to swap so-called "physically" settled bitcoin futures contracts, meaning traders and investors are not able to sell more bitcoin than they actually have, but the total number traded came to just 72 by the end of its first day, compared to over 5,000 traded on the first day of CME's cash-settled futures, launched at the peak of bitcoin-mania in December 2017.
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