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Bitcoin Back to $42K, Nearly Recovering All of Wednesday's Losses

That didn't take long: Bitcoin is already back to where it was at the start of Wednesday, just before the biggest sell-off in 14 months.

By Lawrence Lewitinn, Bradley Keoun

Updated Mar 6, 2023, 2:58 p.m. Published May 20, 2021, 1:21 p.m.

Bitcoin (BTC) jumped 15% Thursday, recovering nearly all of the ground lost during the yesterday's price plunge.

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As of press time, the largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $42,500. That's roughly where it started on Wednesday, just before a 14% sell-off over the ensuing 24 hours – the biggest single-day decline since March 2020. Prices nearly fell below $30,000 at one point.

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, was also on the mend Thursday, up 20% to about $2,931 at press time. The price tumbled 28% over the course of Wednesday, briefly dipping below $2,000.

Other cryptocurrencies joined in the rebound. All of the free-floating cryptocurrencies in the CoinDesk 20 were up over the past 24 hours, with cardano (ADA) jumping some 69% to $1.92. Bitcoin cash (BCH) surged 57% to $845.

Sizing Wednesday's market activity

Wednesday's spot market volume was one for the record books, according to CoinMarketCap. Some $131.1 billion in bitcoin changed hands, nearly $5 billion more than Tuesday's figure and nearly double the dollar volume of March 12, 2020, the "Black Thursday" of crypto.

However, it should be noted that bitcoin was trading at one-fifth its current price at that point. Thus, when measured on a bitcoin volume basis, March 2020’s sell-off was far worse.

Bitcoin's market dominance, a measure of its market cap relative to the total for all other cryptocurrencies, briefly fell below 40% on Wednesday for the first time since June 2018.

Also read: Ark Investment’s Cathie Wood Says Bitcoin Will Go to $500,000

Ether also saw record volume in trading, with close to $93.5 billion of the cryptocurrency finding new owners Wednesday.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) market was still feeling the heat from this week's crypto market correction. The total amount of assets locked in DeFi is just above $65 billion, down from an all-time high of $88 billion on May 11, according to data site DeFiPulse.com.

Despite the rough stretch, cryptocurrencies are still trouncing almost all other asset classes this year. Bitcoin is up around 44% year to date while ether has quadrupled in price.

Ethereum Bitcoin Ether Cardano Cryptocurrency Markets

Lawrence Lewitinn

Lawrence Lewitinn serves as the Director of Content for The Tie, a crypto data company, and co-hosts CoinDesk's flagship "First Mover" program. Previously, he held the position of Managing Editor for Markets at CoinDesk. He is a seasoned financial journalist having worked at CNBC, TheStreet, Yahoo Finance, the Observer, and crypto publication Modern Consensus. Lewitinn's career also includes time on Wall Street as a trader of fixed income, currencies, and commodities at Millennium Management and MQS Capital. Lewitinn graduated from New York University and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He is also a CFA Charterholder. He holds investments in bitcoin.

Bradley Keoun

Bradley Keoun is CoinDesk's managing editor of tech & protocols, where he oversees a team of reporters covering blockchain technology, and previously ran the global crypto markets team. A two-time Loeb Awards finalist, he previously was chief global finance and economic correspondent for TheStreet and before that worked as an editor and reporter for Bloomberg News in New York and Mexico City, reporting on Wall Street, emerging markets and the energy industry. He started out as a police-beat reporter for the Gainesville Sun in Florida and later worked as a general-assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he double-majored in electrical engineering and classical studies as an undergraduate at Duke University and later obtained a master's in journalism from the University of Florida. He is currently based in Austin, Texas, and in his spare time plays guitar, sings in a choir and hikes in the Texas Hill Country. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.