Bitcoin’s increasing correlation with risk assets meant it got caught up in the overnight market selloff in the U.S. Investors dumped shares of Target and Walmart after the American retailers cautioned about possibly taking a margin hit from not being able to pass on price increases to customers.
See related article: Has Bitcoin become a victim of its own success?
Fast facts
- Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed down by more than 4% each, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping by 3.6%.
- It was the worst one-day loss for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average since June 2020, according to Reuters.
- It came after Target’s Q1 profit fell by half with its shares dropping about 25%, losing some US$25 billion in market capitalization. It was the American discount retailer’s worst session since the Black Monday crash on Oct. 19, 1987, Reuters said.
- Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell as much as 4.4% with Ethereum losing 6.2% in the past 24 hours.
- They were trading at US$29,147.89 and US$1,936.75 respectively at the time of publishing.
- Leading altcoins Cardano and Solana led the selloffs, however, both losing over 12% overnight before recovering slightly to trade at US$0.5163 and US$49.96 respectively at press time.
See related article: Cryptos slump over inflation, Shanghai lockdown and war concerns