Bitcoin value drops by 50% since November peak

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The value of Bitcoin continued to fall over the weekend as it dropped below $34,000, according to the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, BBC reported. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market value has now fallen by 50 percent since its peak in November last year.

The slide in the value of digital assets comes as stock markets around the world also dropped in recent days. On Monday, some Asian markets headed lower again with Japan's benchmark Nikkei index down by around 2 percent.

Bitcoin accounts for about a third of the cryptocurrency market with a total value of $650bn, BBC reported. Ethereum, the second-biggest cryptocurrency in the world, has also fallen in value, down by more than 10 percent in the last week.

Although much of 2022 had been relatively quiet for the cryptocurrency market, volatile trading in digital assets has not been that unusual in previous years. Trading was dominated for years by individual investors, but more recently the market has seen an influx of professional investors, such as hedge funds and money managers.

With more traditional investors trading digital assets, cryptocurrencies have increasingly followed the movements of global stock markets. Many of the institutional investors that buy cryptocurrencies treat them as risk assets, similar to technology stocks.

In times of market uncertainty, traditional investors will often sell what they see as riskier assets and move their money into safer investments. Last week, central banks around the world, including the US, the UK and Australia, raised interest rates as they attempted to tackle rising prices. The US Federal Reserve raised its key lending rate by half a percentage point, marking its biggest rate hike in more than 20 years.

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