By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Coinbase stock (NASDAQ:COIN) traded 6% lower in premarket Friday as the world of cryptocurrencies underwent another meltdown.
Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD) fell as much as 10% before retracing slightly to trade around $38,519 at 8:20 AM ET (1320 GMT). Ethereum ETH/USD, the second-largest crypto by market cap, lost 12%. Shiba Inu SHIB/USD fell 10% and Dogecoin DOGE/USD 9%.
Global crypto market cap slipped 8.6% to $1.8 trillion, according to Coinmarketcap.com, while trading volumes more than doubled.
The notion of cryptos as a hedge against inflation has been sternly tested in recent weeks. In just over 10 weeks, Bitcoin has lost more than 45% of its value since touching an all-time high of $68,990.6 in November.
The weakness in cryptos comes as yields rise and investors flee riskier assets in preparation for Fed’s first rate hike after the pandemic. So-called growth stocks have tumbled as the pandemic-induced growth tapers and the world adjusts to a normal world. Peloton stock (NASDAQ:PTON), a pandemic-winner, lost nearly a fourth of its value Thursday on reports it might halt production for a couple of months owing to lack of demand. Peloton denied the news. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) was down 20% in today’s premarket due to a slowing subscriber base.
Crypto-related stocks were sharply down too in Friday’s premarket. MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), a big holder of Bitcoin, shed almost 9%. Bit Digital (NASDAQ:BTBT) was down 7% while Hut 8 Mining (NASDAQ:HUT) lost 8%.