decrypt.co
The price of Bitcoin has increased by 9% in the past 24 hours to $33,200. The rise brings it further away from dipping below $30,000, but trouble is never far away in a market that ping-pongs between $30,000 and $35,000 almost daily.
In its latest match of whiff-whaff, Bitcoin briefly surpassed $35,000 on June 24, but the coin sank to as low as $30,860 yesterday afternoon, data from Nomics shows.
Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $622 billion. It amounts to 47% of the $1.3 trillion crypto market. It is trailed by Ethereum, which has a market cap of $217 billion and accounts for 16.4% of the market.
Altcoins mirrored Bitcoin’s price movements. Ethereum has increased by 7.5% to trade at $1,850, Binance Coin rose by 5.30% to $280, and Cardano is worth $1.28, or 6.26% than this time yesterday. Dogecoin is now worth $0.24, marking an increase of 5.24%.
Although the yo-yoing might suggest a level of optimism, the market is in the red this week. Over the past week, Bitcoin is down by 6%, Ethereum by 15%, Binance Coin by 16%, Cardano by 8%, and Dogecoin by 12%.
China’s crackdown on Bitcoin miners is one of the culprits behind the crash. Bitcoin's hash rate—the total computational power that backs the network—dropped by 17% last week after the Chinese government issued a shutdown order of 26 Bitcoin miners in Sichuan, a province popular for miners who sap its hydroelectric dams for cheap electricity. The hash rate has somewhat recovered but nowhere near to previous levels.
Some Chinese miners are moving abroad to get around the crackdown. On June 22, Chinese Bitcoin mining firm BIT Mining delivered its first batch of 320 mining machines to Kazakhstan, which offers cheap electricity with few restrictions. The company said 2,600 more machines would follow.