New COVID Variant FUD Drives Bitcoin Down To $54k

Keshav Verma

1 year ago

3 mins read

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The news of the latest COVID variant is invoking a fresh wave of FUD among investors, with Bitcoin crashing down to $54k, and markets across the board slipping into the red.

Bitcoin Plunges To $54k As News Of COVID Variant Emerges

Financial markets are moving into the red on Friday as news of a new COVID variant makes investors around the world worried.

According to a BBC report, this new variant was discovered in South Africa, and scientists have found it to be the most heavily mutated version so far.

Not much is clear about the variant’s properties yet, but what looks to be most worrying so far is that this version of COVID may be vaccine resistant due to the large number of mutations.

The Director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation in South Africa, Prof. Tulio de Oliveira, said “This variant did surprise us, it has a big jump on evolution [and] many more mutations that we expected.”

If it indeed turns out to have strong immunity to the vaccine, then vaccination efforts so far may become ineffective, and nations around the world may look at enforcing new lockdowns.

Because of these fresh COVID concerns, investors have started to de-risk their holdings. This sell off has taken Bitcoin down to $54k.

Here is a chart that shows the trend in the price of BTC over the past day:

BTC's price plummets down | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

As the above graph shows, Bitcoin is currently down 8% in the day so far, but earlier it went down to as low as $53.5k.

Almost $200 million in BTC was liquidated in the past 12 hours alone as traders are looking to catch the bottom with leveraged longs.

BTC liquidation data over the past 24 hours | Source: coinglass

What Could Be Next For BTC’s Price?

Just yesterday, Bitcoin’s price finally started to show some recovery from the decline that followed its new all-time high as the crypto broke past $59k once again.

The below chart highlights the trend in the price of the crypto over the past few days.

BTC's price almost started on the path to recovery before this crash | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

However, before this recovery could come to fruition, the news about the COVID variant arrived, and the price of the crypto once again crashed down.

At the moment, it’s unclear which direction Bitcoin might go in next. The coin may have already hit the bottom, but it’s possible that as more news about the variant surfaces, the coin may travel further down still.

Featured image from Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com

Keshav Verma

Keshav is currently a senior writer at NewsBTC and has been attached to the website since June 14, 2021.

Keshav has been writing for many years, first as a hobbyist and later as a freelancer. He has experience working in a variety of niches, even fiction at one point, but the cryptocurrency industry has been the longest he has been attached to.

In terms of official educational qualifications, Keshav holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from one of the premier institutes of India, the University of Delhi (DU). He started the degree with an aim of eventually making a career in Physics, but the onset of COVID led to a shift in plans. The virus meant that the college classes had to be delivered in the online-mode and with it came free time for him to explore other passions.

Initially only seeking to make some beer money, Keshav unexpectedly landed clients offering real projects, after which there was no looking back. Writing was something he had always enjoyed and to be able to do it for a living was like a dream come true.

Keshav completed his Physics degree in 2022 and has been focusing on his writing career since, but that doesn’t mean his passion for Physics has ended. He eventually plans to re-enter university to obtain a masters degree in the same field, but perhaps only to satiate his own interest rather than for using it as a means to find employment..

Keshav has found blockchain and its concepts fascinating ever since he started going down the rabbit-hole back in 2020. On-chain analysis in particular has been something he likes to research more about, which is why his NewsBTC pieces tend to involve it in some form.

Being of the science background, Keshav likes if concepts are clear and consistent, so he generally explains the indicators he talks about in a bit of detail so that the readers can perhaps come out having understood and learnt something new.

As for hobbies, Keshav is super into football, anime, and videogames. He enjoys football not only as a watcher, but also as a player. For games, Keshav generally tends towards enjoying singleplayer adventures, with EA FC (formerly FIFA) being the only online game he is active in. Though, perhaps due to being ultra-focused on the game, he is today a semi-pro on the EA FC scene, regularly participating in tournaments and sometimes even taking back prize money.

Because of his enthusiasm for anime and games, he also self-learned Japanese along the way to consume some of the untranslated gems out there. The skill didn’t merely remain as just a hobby, either, as he put it to productive use during his exploration for small-time gigs at the start of COVID, fulfilling a couple of Japanese-to-English translation jobs.

Keshav is also big into fitness, with agility and acceleration-related workouts making a big part of his program due to the relevance they have in football. On top of that, he also has a more traditional strength based program for the gym, which he does to maintain an overall fitness level of his body.

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