Bitcoin plummets to 26,000 after SpaceX announcement

Bitcoin plummeted as much as 9% to just over $26,000.

The cryptocurrency last traded at $26,593.68, reflecting a decline of more than 8%.

The fall in bitcoin comes hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX, run by Elon Musk, wrote off the value of its bitcoin assets totaling $373 million in 2022 and 2021, and that the space travel company sold virtual currency.

“This is one of the most brutal, minute-to-minute sell-offs we have seen in bitcoin history,” Ryan Rasmussen, researcher at Bitwise Asset Management, told CNBC. "The current assumption is that this is a sell-off caused by Elon Musk and SpaceX." He noted that this latest sharp decline is "short-sighted and largely driven by retail."

In 2022, Tesla, which Musk also leads as CEO, announced that it had sold about 75% of its bitcoin holdings, investing $1.5 billion in the flagship cryptocurrency.