Bitcoin and ether plummeted on Tuesday, the same day El Salvador adopted thecrypto as legal tender.- The popular cryptocurrency fell from a high of about $52,000 to a low of about $44,000.
- Bitcoin recovered some of its losses in afternoon
trading and is now above its 50- and 200-day moving averages. - Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell>$4.
The price of $4 and $4 plunged on Tuesday, the same day $4 the cryptocurrency as legal tender to help combat persistent hyper-inflation.
Bitcoin fell as much as 17%, while the sell-off spilled over to other cryptos including ether, which was down as much as 23% in Tuesday trades.
Bitcoin was trading near a key cluster of resistance levels around $52,000 before it plunged to a low of about $44,000. The cryptocurrency managed to find support at its rising 200-day moving average, and quickly bounced off of that level.
Ether fell from about $4,000 to as low as $3,200, both levels well above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. The crypto pared its losses and was down about 12% at time of publication.
Bitcoin pared its mid-day losses to 11% at time of publication, with the cryptocurrency hovering just above its 50-day moving average of about $46,000. In the run-up to today's official adoption of bitcoin, $4 and indicated that it plans to purchase "a lot more." Those purchases were worth about $20 million.
To hasten the adoption of bitcoin as a means of legal tender, El Salvador will $4 to code its official bitcoin wallet. But not everyone in El Salvador has been won over by the country's bitcoin plans, with polls suggesting 75% of Salvadorians have reservations about the plan.
Tuesday's sell-off in bitcoin and ether spilled over into other altcoins popular among crypto investors, with cardano, dogecoin, and litecoin all plunging more than 14%.