Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices fell on Tuesday, following a sharp warning from Finance Secretary Janet Yellen.
“It’s a very inefficient way of doing things, and the amount of energy expended in processing those things is staggering,” Yellen said in an interview with the New York Times’ Dealbook late Monday. . This is not the first time she has criticized the cryptocurrency, which she said is often used for illegal transactions.
However, Yellen also said that digital currencies tended to stay here and that “digital dollars” could be an easier payment system for many Americans who do not have that access.
The price of bitcoin is BTCUSD,
it eventually went down 14% to $ 47,891, a level it hasn’t seen in about a week, but it is still up 73% so far this year. Losses were not limited to bitcoin, with ether prices, the currency running at the top of the ETHUSD ethereum,
platform, off 20% and for XRP XRPUSD,
which is crushed to Ripple, down 22%.
The former chairman of the Federal Reserve has made it clear from the takeover of the Treasury that his department will be taking a close look at bitcoin, with possible regulation.
It’s just a “temporary stop,” she said Stephen Innes, Axi’s chief global markets strategist, in a note to clients. “In addition to the Middle East coalition’s huge interest in trading ETFs on the Toronto exchange that requires a corporate hedge, but if corporations start adding corporate coins to the balance this year, that is the game-changing panacea, ”he said.
Bitcoin recently raised $ 1 trillion in market value for the first time, and major shifts seen this year have attracted more investors and interest from companies such as carmakers Tesla TSLA,
who appeared earlier this month an investment of $ 1.5 billion in bitcoin and expect to accept it as payment in the future. And a great Mastercard MA credit card,
also stated that it would allow buyers to accept some cryptocurrencies on their network later this year.
Read: Tesla bitcoin gambit already made $ 1 billion, more than 2020 profit from car sales, analyst estimates
But bitcoin had a volatile start to the week, falling Monday in a move that some blamed Tesla TSLA,
CEO Elon Musk. Over the weekend, he tweeted that “BTC & ETH looks high lol” in response to Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff, who defended gold over bitcoin. “Gold is not BS. It’s real money and better than both! ”
That continued back and forth between Musk and Schiff on Tuesday, with the latter criticizing the Head of the electric car’s bitcoin approach. Musk responded with an eggplant emoji, which some suggested as his way of rejecting the idea. That emoji was banned by the social media group Facebook on their Instagram unit over symbolic phallic and food.