Bitcoin fell below $58k again as Crypto promptly collapsed Thursday afternoon

Several days of mostly calm price activity came to a quick end Thursday afternoon in U.S. trading as cryptocurrencies suddenly collapsed, with Bitcoin (BTC) hitting its lowest level since the market panic in early August.

At the time of publication, Bitcoin was changing hands at $57,700, down 3% from its price just an hour ago. Other major cryptocurrencies showed even steeper declines, including ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL). The CoinDesk 20 broad market index was down 3% from 24 hours earlier.

The summer of 2024 has seen two previous panic declines, the first of which occurred when the U.S. was enjoying its July 4th break. The catalyst for this sell-off was the German government's decision to begin selling the first of its 50,000 bitcoins that had been seized as part of a criminal investigation. The second major drop occurred just about two weeks ago when what appeared to be an innocuous rate hike by the Bank of Japan triggered a global plunge in stock markets that spread to all risk assets, including Crypto.

Today's sell-off, for now, seems to have no obvious catalyst. US stock markets are rising again, with the Nasdaq up 2.4% and the S&P 500 up 1.6%, both of which are now back to levels seen long before the panic in early August.