Bitcoin price – live: Crypto market hangs in balance after rollercoaster week

Paraguay looks to be lining up to be the next country to follow El Salvador by introducing a law that would make bitcoin legal tender in the country.

One of the largest entertainment groups in the South American country is planning to accept cryptocurrency payments, while lawmaker Carolos Rejala says he plans to introduce legislation next month.

The exact details are yet to be revealed, but earlier this month Rejala said he was working with “the Paraguayan crypto community in order for Paraguay to become a hub for the crypto investors of the world and subsequently to be placed among the ones on the cutting edge of digital technology”.

President Nayib Bukele from El Salvador has shared some mocked up images of the geothermal bitcoin mines that are being constructed in the country.

President Bukele made monetary history earlier this month by passing the Bitcoin Law through congress, making El Salvador the first country in the world to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender.

He then ordered the country’s state-run geothermal energy utility to use power from volcanoes for bitcoin mining. It will be “very cheap, 100 per cent clean [and] 100 per cent renewable”, he claims, and form part of the solution to shifting away from fossil fuel-powered operations.

Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, whose net worth is $13.2 billion, has likened bitcoin to gold and argued that every investor should have some in their portfolio.

Speaking to José Rodriguez, former payments chief at crypto exchange Bitso, Pliego said 10 per cent of his liquid assets are in bitcoin due to its finite supply.

“All of bitcoin’s benefits, in my opinion, are sufficient to make it the modern world’s gold,” he said in Spanish during the interview on YouTube.

“It’s pointless to argue over whether it’s a currency or not. the fact that Bitcoin is limited in supply, easy to transfer, and has a high level of worldwide liquidity are compelling reasons to consider it as part of an investment portfolio.”

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology can be allies in the fight against climate change, according to UN experts.

A new report acknowledges recent criticism of the environmental impact of bitcoin mining but says there are solutions to this issue, and that its underlying technology actually holds “promise” for building a sustainable global economy and combatting climate change.

“The UN should continue experimenting in the blockchain space”, says Minang Acharya, one of the authors of a recent UNEP foresight brief on the applications of blockchain.

“The more we experiment, the more we learn about the technology. This is likely to improve our UN-wide knowledge on blockchain, our understanding of the environmental and social implications of mining operations, and improve our chances of coping with any problems the technology may bring in the future.”

You can read the full story here.

The creator of a price prediction model that gained widespread attention during the latest bull run has said that the latest crash has made him “uneasy”, as it could invalidate his analysis.

The pseudonymous Dutch analyst PlanB first published his Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model in 2019, when bitcoin was languishing below $4,000 and in the middle of a bear market. The model is based on bitcoin’s in-built scarcity – only 21 million will ever exist – and puts the cryptocurrency on a path to $100,000 before the end of 2021. (You can read more about the model here.)

PlanB updated his model in March 2020, when bitcoin was below $5,000, with the new peak set at $288,000. For the next year, bitcoin actually outperformed the model, but is now reaching the lower bands.

“I will call S2F invalidated if we have not reached 100k by Dec this year,” he wrote. “We can not stay at current levels for the rest of the year.”

US Senator Cynthia Lummis says she was “really excited” by the recent bitcoin crash because it would allow her to buy more of the cryptocurrency at a cheaper price.

Speaking to Fox Business News when bitcoin was below $30,000 yesterday, the Republican lawmaker batted away comments from anchor Stuart Varney about bitcoin’s “decline”.

She said: “I’m really excited about it because as soon as it drops a little more I’m going to buy some more.”

She also said she hoped any regulation that is introduced in the US will be “simple”, “easy to understand” and “not overly restrictive”.

Bitcoin has bounced back well above $30,000, to the point that it is now trading higher than it was at this time yesterday.

It’s a remarkable recovery of more than 10 per cent over the last few hours, following a devastating crash that took bitcoin to lows not seen in 2021.

Any major movements in either direction are often followed by significant corrections in the crypto market, so this is not so unusual. Having broken the $30,000 resistance level, however, traders will still likely be looking down rather than up right now.

Dogecoin founder Billy Markus says he has bought some of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency for the first time since he helped create it eight years ago.

The announcement comes after a massive price fall for dogecoin, which has seen it lose more than a third of its value over the last week.

Markus sold or spent his original holdings soon after creating the cryptocurrency alongside fellow software developer Jackson Palmer back in 2013. He did not reveal how much he bought, but said that since acquiring his new stash he has followed the pattern of many a new-time crypto investor by incessantly checking the price.

You can read the full story here.

Bitcoin has fallen even further in the last few minutes, reaching below $29,000.

The cryptocurrency hit $28,893, meaning it has officially wiped out all the gains made in 2021.

It is still way up from this time last year, when it was trading below $10,000. It is, however, only up $8,000 from its 2017 price peak. At this rate, it won’t be long before we find out whether it will threaten that level.

We’ll have some expert reaction coming shortly, but for now here’s a graph showing bitcoin’s wild year so far.

Bitcoin has crashed below $30,000 for the first time since January, adding to the already staggering losses it has seen since hitting an all-time high back in April.

The cryptocurrency is now down 54 per cent since its record high. Other leading cryptocurrencies have been dragged down with it, including Ethereum (ether), Cardano (ada) and dogecoin.

In total, more than half a trillion dollars has been wiped from the market over the last week.

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