A deteriorating macroeconomic climate and the collapse of industry giants such as FTX and Terra have weighed on the Bitcoin price this year.
STR | Nurphoto via Getty Images
The cryptocurrency market suffered heavy selling overnight on Saturday amid an unprecedented Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel.
Bitcoin fell about 8% late Saturday evening as U.S. officials confirmed the attack took place. Digital coins were among the few risk assets trading over the weekend, and the decline was seen as an initial response to escalating tensions in the Middle East.
According to data from the Bitstamp exchange, Bitcoin was trading at around $70,000 on Saturday evening but plunged to below $62,000. On Sunday morning it recovered and was trading above $64,000. Other coins such as Ether also saw strong sales, in some cases falling as much as 10%.
Bitcoin's selloff was the strongest in more than a year, according to Bloomberg, with the coin recently hitting new records as inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to drive the cryptocurrency's price action.
In the Middle East, the events overnight marked the first direct attack on Israel from Iranian territory. Israel said it had identified 300 “threats of various types” and eliminated “99%” of those that were on Israeli soil.
The barrage of drones and missiles into Israel was reportedly in response to a suspected Israeli attack that killed senior Iranian officials in Syria.
According to data from foreign exchange monitoring site Bonbast, Iran's currency fell to a record low of 705,000 riyals/USD in the unofficial market around 10:30 a.m. local time on Sunday.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index, the TA-35, fell 0.38% at 10:23 a.m. London time.
—CNBC's Ruxandra Iordache contributed to this article.
Learn Crypto Trading, Yield Farms, Income strategies and more at CrytoAnswers
https://nov.link/cryptoanswers
Comments are closed.