Bitcoin falls back below $40,000 as it wraps up wild week of trading
A Bitcoin sign is seen at the entrance of a cryptocurrency exchange office on April 16, 2021 in Istanbul, Turkey.
Chris McGrath | Getty Images
Bitcoin’s price fell back below $40,000 level on Friday after Chinese authorities intensified calls to crackdown on mining and trading the cryptocurrency.
The digital coin was last down 6% at a price of $37,761.15 by 11:00 a.m. ET, according to Coin Metrics data, on pace for its worst week since March 13. It bounced above the $42,000 mark on Thursday as digital currencies attempted to rebound from a big sell-off earlier in the week.
Other cryptocurrencies were in the red Friday, with ether last down 8.4% at $2,567.31, XRP off by 11.8% at $1.05 and litecoin falling 10.6% to $188.4. Dogecoin, a meme-inspired crypto supported by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, was down 9.3% at 37 cents.
Bitcoin’s gains were capped Friday after the U.S. Treasury Department said a day earlier that it would require any cryptocurrency transfer worth $10,000 or more to be reported to the IRS.
“Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion,” the Treasury said.