Bitcoin Price Threatens to Drop Below $50,000

Bitcoin's price dropped sharply in Thursday trading, scraping the $51,000 mark and threatening a dip below $50,000 for the first time since March 5.

After hitting as low as $50,500 on some exchanges, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap is now down 17% for the week and nearly 5% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Nomics.

It's not just Bitcoin. Fellow top-10 tokens Cardano and Polkadot have fallen 4-5% in the last day. Meanwhile, Binance Coin and XRP are each down 8-10%, while Dogecoin has dipped 15%.

Bitcoin peaked at an all-time high of $63,520 on April 12. In the past 10 days, it has shaved over $11,000 of its price.

BTC has done this before. On February 20, the coin cost $57,000 before dropping back down to $45,000 a week later. Two weeks after that, it was above $60,000 for the first time. The market plummeted again over the weekend, contributing to a backlog of transactions.

On the other hand, Bitcoin's rapid rise—it was below $10,000 as recently as last July—has fueled concern of a steep correction.

It's not necessarily bearish for crypto traders, however, as the crypto market is slightly more diversified than it once was.

Bitcoin's market dominance has fallen below the 50% mark for the first time since 2018, meaning altcoins comprise most of crypto's total market capitalization.

And some of them are still doing quite well. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, is up nearly 3% on the day. And a handful of Ethereum-based tokens are beating the bad day, among them Maker and Uniswap's governance token.