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Bitcoin (BTC-USD), Ethereum (ETH-USD), Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) and other major cryptocurrencies in Tuesday afternoon trading have wiped out early morning gains, now trading in negative territory, as investors continue to shy away from risk assets.
Meme token Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) was climbing more than 10% Monday morning after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk had reached a deal to acquire social media platform Twitter (TWTR) for $44B. Now the token is down nearly 6% to $0.14.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD -3.1%) is falling back down to $38.2K and ethereum (ETH-USD -2.6%) is drifting lower to $2.85K. The global crypto market cap is declining 2.6% to $1.78T at the time of writing. By comparison, all three of the main stock market indices are deep in the red, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (COMP.IND) -3.2% falling the most intraday.
Given Musk’s history of touting Dogecoin (DOGE-USD), the 10th largest digital token by market cap, it’s possible that the meme coin could play a role with Twitter’s (TWTR) platform somehow. Recall Musk in mid-March said that he still owns and won’t sell his Bitcoin (BTC-USD), Ether (ETH-USD) or Doge (DOGE-USD) positions.
“Speculators have been buying dogecoin due to Elon’s obsession with the cryptocurrency, and hence the potential for dogecoin to be given more utility on one of the biggest social media networks once Elon has official control of the company,” GlobalBlock analyst Marcus Sotiriou, as reported by Barron’s.
Crypto-related stocks are also facing selling pressure. Some of the largest percentage intraday decliners include: Bitfarms (BITF -6.1%), Riot Blockchain (RIOT -7.4%), Marathon Digital (MARA -7.5%), Hut 8 Mining (HUT -8.4%), Silvergate Capital (SI -7.5%) Core Scientific (CORZ -3.5%) and BIT Mining (BTCM -9.4%).
For crypto-related news, Fidelity Investments took the spotlight after it made plans to allow investors to put Bitcoin (BTC-USD) in their 401(k)s, a big move for the crypto community since this would be the first retirement-plan provider to offer exposure to BTC.
On April 25, Bitcoin fell to a six-week low.