Bitcoin dives below $54,000 to erase all gains of past 4.5 months

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The price of Bitcoin dove below $54,000 on Friday as the world's biggest cryptocurrency eased all gains of the last four and a half months.

After plummeting 5.3% on Thursday, the price of Bitcoin fell to as low as $53,886 and it was trading around $55,639 for a daily loss of 3.1% at 9.34 a.m. EDT (1334GMT) in Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange platform.

Bitcoin last dove under the $54,000 level on Feb. 26 when it saw below the $51,000 mark, but quickly recovered with a 5.3% gain that day, according to Binance data.

Ethereum, meanwhile, was down 5.1% to $2,970 at the time, while some altcoins saw their prices decline more than 11% for the day.

The value of the cryptocurrency market stood at $2.03 trillion with a 3.5% daily loss, while Bitcoin's share, known as dominance, was at 53.8% and Ethereum's was at 17.5%, according to CoinMarketCap, a digital asset price-tracking website.

After hitting the $70,000 level last on June 10, the price of Bitcoin is down more than 20%. That week, the total value of the cryptocurrency market stood around $2.54 trillion.

Since mid-June, the cryptocurrency market saw over $500 billion evaporating.

The recent selloff in digital assets started after the German government sent 6,500 Bitcoin worth $425 million to crypto exchanges two weeks ago, following a seizure of 50,000 BTC in January -- the biggest crypto seizure in the country.

In addition, the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox announced earlier that it will begin in July to distribute digital assets stolen from its clients in a hacking event in 2014, which added downward pressure on the price of Bitcoin.

Mt. Gox said Friday the distribution of the stolen digital assets to its clients has started, with repayments made in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, and added "Repayments to other rehabilitation creditors will be promptly made," in a statement on X.

The Tokyo-based defunct company was one of the major crypto exchange firms a decade ago, as it was handling over 70% of Bitcoin transactions by early 2014 when it filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors in February of that year.

Its hacking resulted in the loss of an estimated 740,000 Bitcoin, which is worth more than $41 billion in value as of Friday.