Bitcoin retreats from ATH after Binance bug crash
03:34, 22 October 2021
Bitcoin retreated from all-time highs to trade below $63,000 on Friday morning in Asia after bitcoin prices briefly crashed over 87% on cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s US exchange.
The sudden plunge occurred only on Binance’s US exchange at 12.34 London time on Thursday with bitcoin prices trading normally on other cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
“One of our institutional traders indicated to us that they had a bug in their trading algorithm, which appears to have caused the sell-off,” said Binance US in an emailed statement seen by Bloomberg.
Bitcoin briefly crashed over 87% on Binance’s US exchange - Credit: TradingviewVanEck to launch BTC ETF next
On Friday, Bitcoin prices were 3.3% lower over the past 24-hours at $62,753 in early Asia trade. Bitcoin’s new all-time high stood at $67,276.79 reached a day ago, according to CoinGecko.
The bellwether cryptocurrency surged over the week on exuberance from recent bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) launch approval in the US which lifted investor confidence for cryptocurrencies.
A 20 October filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed VanEck ETF Trust could be next in line to launch a bitcoin ETF as early as this week after ProShares debuted its bitcoin ETF earlier.
ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF fastest to $1bn
The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF broke an 18-year record held by the first gold ETF launched in 2004 to reach $1bn asset under management in the fastest time, said Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg in a tweet.
RECORD BREAKER: $BITO assets up to $1.1b after today, making it the fastest ETF to get to $1b (2 days) breaking $GLD’s 18yr old record (3 days), which is poetically apropos. https://t.co/yGXyfwaogD
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 20, 2021
“#Gold was the monetary index of the 19th century until it was replaced by an array of regional stock indexes in the 20th century. #Bitcoin will be the primary monetary index of the 21st century,” tweeted Michael Saylor, founder and CEO of Microstrategy, in response.
Meanwhile, Gabor Gurbacs, director at VanEck tweeted: “The greatest generational wealth transfer ($68 Trillion) is underway. The greatest generation, silent gen. and Baby boomers are expected to transfer $68 Trillion to GenX, Millenials & GenZ. The younger generations believe in themes such as Bitcoin, video games and digital assets.”
Solana overtakes Ripple
Among alt-coins, No 2 cryptocurrency ether slid 1.9% to hover above $4,100 after hitting an all-time high of $4,361.18, according to CoinGecko.
Solana was the only non-stable coin among the top 10 to trade in the green on Friday morning in early Asia trade. Solana was up 8% to $199.78, overtaking Ripple to become the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalisation of nearly $60bn, as of Friday morning.
Binance Coin fell 4.3% to $476.95 and Cardano lost 2.4% to $2.17 on Friday morning in early Asia trade.