Bitcoin price falls below $35,000

The leading cryptocurrency breached the support level around $40,000, dragging the rest of the market lower. After a few hours, the price traded below $35,000.

The chart below shows a pronounced downside move amid rising trading volumes.

The last time Bitcoin traded at such low levels was in early February.

At the time of writing, quotes for the leading cryptocurrency were around $34,000, with a market capitalization of $705 billion.

The altcoins in the top twenty by CoinGecko have fallen sharply in price.

Ethereum price fell below $2,200 (-36.8%). Gas costs and average transaction fees rose sharply.

Against the backdrop, the Binance exchange paused deposits and withdrawals of Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens, citing network congestion of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

The total market capitalization stands at $1.73 trillion, Bitcoin dominance index at 40.9%, according to CoinGecko.

According to Bybt, long positions in cryptocurrency futures were liquidated to the tune of $7.1 billion over the last 24 hours.

Trader Peter Brandt drew an analogy between the current price action and patterns seen at the start of 2018, signaling the beginning of a bear market.

ANALOGs?$BTC pic.twitter.com/4dpJK3FAfd

— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) May 19, 2021

MicroStrategy chief Michael Saylor stressed that he is not selling Bitcoin amid the panic.

I’m not selling. https://t.co/bhpdCuSy4D

— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) May 19, 2021

Earlier, Crypto Mentors founder Nikita Semov predicted a drop in Bitcoin price to $34,000.

As reported, the Bitcoin network hash rate fell by 20% amid power outages in China’s Sichuan province.

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