Bitcoin falls again, last down 4%

(Reuters) -Bitcoin dropped again on Saturday and was last down around 4% for the day, hovering around the $35,000 level.

Bitcoin, the world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is now about half its $69,000 peak in November. It was last at $35,049, after falling as low as $34,000 and following a steep fall on Friday.

The currency has had wild price swings and has been hit as risk appetite has fallen on inflation fears and anticipation of a more aggressive pace of interest rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Other risk assets have fallen with stocks falling on Friday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq recorded their biggest weekly percentage drops since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

In a research note on Friday, Edward Moya, senior market analyst for the Americas at OANDA, said bitcoin was falling as “crypto traders de-risk portfolios following the bloodbath in stocks” and in advance of next week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting.

“Bitcoin remains in the danger zone and if $37,000 breaks, there is not much support until the $30,000 level,” Moya wrote on Friday.

Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, dropped 6.7% to $2,396 on Saturday.

(Reporting by Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru and Megan Davies in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)