By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - The selloff on Wall Street this week has not been limited to stocks, with bitcoin swinging to a 12-month low Friday, before paring some its gains, as investors scramble from crypto assets as the coronavirus continues spread.
Bitcoin fell 15.7% to $5,176, after hitting a session low of $4,000. The popular crypto is down about 40% for the week so far and down about 70% from its all-time high of $19,870.62 set on Dec. 17, 2017.
The plunge has cast further doubt on the claims that bitcoin functions as a safe haven in times of market turmoil.
"The narrative that BTC is a 'safety asset' and is more like a 'digital gold' has yet to get proper traction in mainstream markets outside of the crypto community," said Ben Sebley, partner at BCB Group, a cryptocurrency brokerage.
Some, however, continue to back lofty targets for the popular crypto, forecasting a sharp rebound to unfold in the back half of the year,
"Bitcoin should enjoy a nice run back through $10,000 towards $20,000 by year end," said Arthur Hayes, the chief executive of bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange BitMex.
The move downwards pushed bitcoin's market cap down to $96 billion. At its highest, bitcoin's market cap was $241.2 billion.
Bitcoin had traded in a range of $3,869.50 to $5,934.30 in the previous 24 hours.
Over the past seven days, bitcoin has seen a drop in value, as it lost 42.3%. The volume of bitcoin traded in the 24 hours to time of writing was $71.7 billion. It has traded in a range of $3,869.4661 to $9,180.7529 in the past 7 days.
Smaller-cap cryptos mirrored bitcoin's move lower.
Ethereum was last at $123.87 on the Investing.com Index, down 12.11% on the day.
XRP was trading at $0.14759 on the Investing.com Index, a loss of 11.16%.
Ethereum's market cap was last at $13.7 billion, while XRP's market cap totaled $6.5 billion.