The price of Bitcoin plummeted on Monday after experiencing a rally in cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin tumbled about 17 percent to $28,154.11 in early-morning trading just a day after it surged to a new all-time high of $34,544.94 on Sunday, according to data from Coindesk.
The popular digital coin pared the losses into the morning and was recently off about 5.3 percent at $31,205.83, giving it a market value of roughly $580 billion.
Bitcoin’s recent rally has been fueled by interest from investors hungry for fast gains and resistance to inflation, as well as hopes that it will become a more mainstream digital payment method.
Monday’s intraday loss since March, showed that the digital currency remains volatile even as institutional investors join small-time traders in buying it up.
Alternative cryptocurrencies surged in value Monday even as Bitcoin took a nosedive. One called Etherium was recently trading up 22 percent at $1,008.86 in its first jump above the $1,000 mark since 2018, according to CoinDesk.
Another major cryptocurrency called XRP jumped about 4 percent to roughly 23 cents even though the firm that created it, Ripple, is facing a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
