Bitcoin price drops below $5000

The price of bitcoin dropped sharply on Monday, briefly dipping below $5,000 per coin as a brutal sell-off gripping the cryptocurrency market deepened.

By 11.45 a.m. ET, the benchmark cryptocurrency was trading lower by around 8.5% at $5,164, having rebounded a little from the worst of the day’s trading, according to Markets Insider data.

Monday’s falls extend a horrible week for bitcoin, which has seen it drop to a low not seen since late 2017, just prior to the explosion in prices which saw bitcoin come close to $20,000 per coin before collapsing rapidly.

Bitcoin has lost close to 12% of its value in the past week, and almost 20% in the last three months.

“Bitcoin collapsed like a house of cards on Monday,” Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM said in an email.

“While most are blaming the Bitcoin cash ‘hard fork’ as a key player behind Bitcoin’s weakness, technicals could have played a role. The weekly close under the $6,000 level was a bearish confirmation of further…