Musk breakup tweets bruise bitcoin

Cryptocurrency fell more than 7% on Friday

LONDON:

Bitcoin fell more than 7% on Friday, with tweets by Tesla boss Elon Musk that appeared to lament a breakup with the cryptocurrency again moving markets. Tesla’s big position in bitcoin and Musk’s large personal following set crypto markets on edge whenever he tweets, and the price fell after he posted “#Bitcoin”, a broken-heart emoji. Musk followed up by posting a breakup comic strip and replying “nice” to an illustration of rival crypto dogecoin posted by crypto exchange Coinbase. It was unclear what, if anything, any of the tweets meant. Musk has previously said Tesla would not sell its bitcoin, but his tweets were enough to unsettle markets still fragile following May’s crash. “When Elon Musk tweets any crypto-related content, the market...expects a reaction,” said Nick Spanos, co-founder of ZAP Protocol, a crypto project in Switzerland. Bitcoin’s fall pushed it below its 20-day moving average to as low as $36,263, and took some of the edge off its week-to-date gains. It is up 2% so far this week.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2021.

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