Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed $BTC/USD crashing through $30,000 support, shedding 6% in an hour and hitting the lowest levels since late January.
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After dropping from $41,000 a week ago, Bitcoin saw multiple rapid bursts of downward volatility in recent days, culminating in Tuesday's $30,000 breach.
As Cointelegraph reported, the breakdown was widely anticipated by traders, some of whom were already calling for $25,000 and even lower.
China and the associated media attention surrounding its mining purge appeared to be the main driver of bearishness, despite widespread arguments that the shake-up would actually benefit Bitcoin in the long term.
"How is more Bitcoin mining power moving to the and the West a bad thing?" David Marcus, head of Facebook's F2 project, queried on Monday.
"IMO China cracking down on mining is a great development for $BTC."
Support evaporates above $25,00
At the time of writing, $BTC/USD traded at around $29,000 amid heavy volatility, bouncing at $29,600 on Bitstamp.
Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, reportedly began experiencing technical problems as the price action unfolded.
Binance orderbook data showed buyers lined up at $25,000, with events taking out the $30,000 positions visible in the latest representation from monitoring resource Material Indicators.
$BTC/USD buy and sell positions on Binance. Source: Material Indicators/ Twitter