Crypto company shares and funds closed sharply lower on Tuesday as bitcoin dropped briefly to a two-year low, even though the three major U.S. equity indexes ended higher.
Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-0.13%
tumbled to as low as $17,484 Tuesday, the lowest level since Nov. 2020, after Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, said it had signed a letter of intent to acquire the non-U.S. assets of rival FTX, which faces a “significant liquidity crunch.”
Read: Bitcoin falls to two-year low after crypto exchange Binance proposed to buy rival FTX
Bitcoin lost over 12% to around $18,374 over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. Ether
ETHUSD,
+0.07%
fell 17.6% over the past 24 hours. The 50 largest cryptocurrencies, except some dollar-pegged stablecoins, are all in red Tuesday.
Shares in Crypto exchange Coinbase
COIN,
-10.78%
closed down 10.6% at around $50.92, according to Dow Jones Market data. MicroStrategy
MSTR,
-20.55%
finished 21% lower at around $211.8.
Mining company Riot Blockchain
RIOT,
-7.30%
shares went down 7.4% to around $5.30, and Marathon Digital Holdings
MARA,
-5.14%
shares lost 5.2% to $9.96. Another miner, Ebang International Holdings Inc.
EBON,
-1.44%
shares dropped 1.4% to around $0.31.
Among crypto funds, ProShares’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF
BITO,
-13.39%
plummeted 13.2% to $11.15, while its Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF
BITI,
+12.97%
rallied 13.2% to $40.06. Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF
BTF,
-13.47%
tanked 13.5% to $6.94, and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust
GBTC,
-12.40%
dived 12.5% to $10.55.
