Bitcoin Price Falls Below $20,000 Amid the Collapse of Crypto Bank Silvergate

Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, has fallen below $20,000.

On March 10th, at 01:25 AM UTC, Bitcoin fell to $19,945 for the first time in almost two months.

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The largest cryptocurrency has seen significant growth during the first months of 2023. Since January 11th, the BTC price has been increasing. At one point, on February 22nd, Bitcoin (BTC) retailed for $24,854.

However, things started going downhill on March 9th, after one of the primary banks to provide services to crypto-related companies, Silvergate, entered voluntary liquidation.

The news about Silvergate’s voluntary liquidation wasn’t surprising, as the bank faced multiple headwinds since the beginning of 2023. In January, the company’s 2022 fourth-quarter report showed that Silvergate had a $1 billion net loss.

On top of that, in February, the news broke that the US Department of Justice is looking into Silvergate over its ties with bankrupt crypto firms FTX and Alameda Research.

A month later, Silvergate revealed that it had to delay the submission of Form 10-K to the US Securities and Exchange Commission by two weeks. After the news broke, Silvergate’s stock price started falling drastically. The next day, major crypto firms like Coinbase, Paxos, and Celsius revealed they had terminated their partnership with Silvergate.

In over a week, Silvergate's stock price dropped by a whopping 79%. On March 9th, the trading for the company’s stocks closed at $2,84.

Another reason for the BTC price drop may be influenced by a recent US budget proposal, which claims that US crypto miners may be “subject to an excise tax equal to 30 percent of the costs of electricity used in digital asset mining.”

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) retails for $20,024.31, recording an 8.36% decrease in the last 24 hours.