Bitcoin is suffering its worst price drop since 2022, falling more than 10% on Monday morning to a six-month low. The world's top cryptocurrency fell below $50,000 (£39,000) for the first time since February before rebounding to $52,000 at the time of writing. The sudden drop comes after one of the most bullish periods in Bitcoin's history, reaching an all-time high of $74,000 in March and holding near that level until this weekend.

Other major cryptocurrencies have suffered even bigger losses, with Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) all down around 15% in the past 24 hours. The overall cryptocurrency market has dropped below $2 trillion to $1.85 trillion, down 13% over the past day. Bitcoin has lost nearly a quarter of its value in just seven days, building on losses over the past week.

The latest price drop comes amid a broader downturn in financial markets, driven in part by fears of an impending global recession. The cryptocurrency's sudden collapse has taken some market analysts by surprise, with many experts previously concurring that bitcoin could hit a new all-time high this year following a successful halving and a $1 billion inflow of investment from recently approved Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds. (ETF). The bitcoin halving event that took place in April saw the reward for mining the cryptocurrency cut in half. The four-yearly event, hard-coded into bitcoin's underlying digital infrastructure, is designed to be a hedge against inflation and has typically preceded record prices. “The crypto market has been hit by a major sell-off, something we haven’t seen in a long time,” said

Alex Kuptsikevich, senior market analyst at FxPro, We wouldn’t be surprised to see a major sell-off before the halving due to the withdrawal of the last buyers before the start of active growth. There is nothing unusual about such a drop in a bear market, but not now, when the 4-year cycle will favor the bulls. ».