Bitcoin Price Slips Below $90,000 Mark Amid Broader Crypto Market Selloff

The price of Bitcoin slid below the $90,000 mark on Tuesday and dropped to its lowest level since mid-November, amid a broader selloff in the crypto market that follows the biggest crypto tokens theft of all time and a few high-profile controversies involving meme coins.

The price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) fell below the $90,000 mark on Tuesday and hit its lowest level since mid-November, as part of a broader selloff in the crypto market that follows the biggest crypto tokens theft of all time and a few high-profile controversies involving meme coins.

Bitcoin's price hit its lowest level since mid-November on Tuesday.

What Happened: The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency was trading at $88,780 early on Tuesday, down nearly 7.5% in the previous 24 hours.

The token’s value has fallen more than 19% since it hit an all-time high of $109,114 on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan 20.

Ether, the second-most valuable crypto asset by market cap, saw an even steeper drop of more than 11% in the previous 24 hours, falling to $2,390 on Tuesday morning.

The prices of other popular crypto tokens including the Ripple Labs linked XRP, Binance’s BNB and Solana’s SOL also saw steep declines of 14.3%, 6.4% and 15% respectively in the past day.

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Trump Meme Coin Price Today: Just days before his inauguration, the president launched an official meme coin, $TRUMP, on the Solona blockchain. Shortly after launch, the meme coin’s price surged above $75, with its market cap briefly crossing $15 billion. On Tuesday, the price of the meme token stood at $12.90, down more than 14% in the previous 24 hours and more than 82% from its all-time high. At the time of $TRUMP’s launch, the token’s website included a disclaimer saying it was not intended to be “an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type,” but rather an “expression of support” for the president. At the time of the launch, several crypto executives warned that a volatile meme token endorsed by the president was likely to harm the industry’s reputation.

Other Recent Meme Coin Related Controversies: The highest-profile recent meme coin-related controversy outside Trump involved Argentinian President Javier Milei and his promotion of the $LIBRA token. Earlier this month, Milei made a now-deleted post on X promoting the token and said it was dedicated to encouraging economic growth in his country by funding small businesses and startups. Following Milei’s post, $LIBRA’s price surged and its market cap crossed $4 billion. However, the token’s early backers immediately began to cash out, causing the token’s price to tank in a manner that resembled a pump-and-dump scheme. Since then, Milei has tried to distance himself from the project, and dismissed complaints from investors who lost their money, saying: “If you go to a casino and lose money, what's there to complain about when you knew the risks?” The incident led to dozens of fraud cases being filed against the Argentinian leader. A scammer was able to impersonate the premier of Bermuda to promote a fake Bermuda National Coin. A few days before the Milei controversy, Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra launched a meme-coin of his own as a purported “experiment” to raise the profile of one of the world’s poorest nations. The coin’s value has slumped by more than 97% since its launch.

Biggest Hack Ever Involving Cryptocurrencies: Last week, the Bybit exchange was the target of the biggest hack ever involving cryptocurrencies. The company announced that a hacker had gained control of one of its wallets and had stolen Ether holdings worth nearly $1.5 billion. The company’s CEO Ben Zhou, however, said the exchange remains solvent and even if they can’t recover the stolen tokens all users’ assets are safe.