Digital currency Bitcoin fell below KSh 2.34 million for the first time since December 2020.
Following the fall over the weekend, Bitcoin has lost 57 percent so far this year and 37 percent this month.
According to Business Daily, the fall has been attributed to difficulties at several major industry players with key investors selling their holdings to meet margin calls and cover losses.
For instance, cryptocurrency fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) is considering assets and a bailout by another firm.
At the same time, Asia-focused crypto lender Babel Finance and US-based lender Celsius Network said it will suspend withdrawals.
“There is a lot of credit being withdrawn from the system and if lenders have to absorb losses from Celsius and Three Arrows, they will reduce the size of their future loan books which means that the entire amount of credit available in the crypto ecosystem is much reduced,” Adam Farthing, chief risk office for Japan at crypto liquidity provider B2C2 said.
As of Monday, Bitcoin was trading at KSh 2.4 million while Ether was at KSh 126,258.
Bitcoin was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.
The currency began use in 2009 when its implementation was released as open-source software.
Bitcoin is created as a reward for a process known as mining and they can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services.
For the longest time, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions, the large amount of electricity used by mining, price volatility, and thefts from exchanges.
A few local and national governments are officially using bitcoin in some capacity; El Salvador and the Central African Republic have adopted Bitcoin as legal tender.
Elsewhere, Ukraine is accepting bitcoin donations to fund the resistance against the Russian invasion.
