Bitcoin has seen a significant drop in its price in recent hours, which has worried investors around the world.
See also: Bitcoin: It is undergoing its most important test because of El Salvador
Bitcoin's decline appears to be directly related to the implementation of a new law by El Salvador, which makes the cryptocurrency legal tender for transactions.
The price fell from above $52,500 to below $44,000 on Tuesday, according to CoinMarketCap.
It has since recovered slightly and is trading just above $45,000 at the time of writing.
Several other top cryptocurrencies also suffered big losses, including ethereum (ether), cardano (ada), and binance coin.
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“ Terrible chart damage affecting BTC and the rest of the crypto market ,” crypto analyst and author Glen Goodman tweeted .
«Bitcoin has just clearly pulled back from the previous resistance line. Is this a repeat of that line or the start of something much worse?»
The sharp drop in prices has wiped hundreds of billions off the total market, which was worth more than $2.35 trillion at the start of the day.
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase also faced problems as people rushed into their portfolios to either cash out or buy due to the drop.
Coinbase suffered an outage amid the massive crash in the value of the cryptocurrency.
See also: Coinbase: Prevented Twitter hackers from stealing another $280,000
The company said shortly after on Twitter that it was aware of the issues that had arisen and had begun investigating the situation.
“We are aware that transactions are currently being delayed or cancelled at a high rate and our applications may be experiencing errors,” it said. “Our team is investigating the issue and will update you here as soon as we know more.”
The problem arose as Coinbase took its place as a public company after becoming the first cryptocurrency company to conduct an IPO. This was completed in April, with its price falling from the initial listing, but it has since regained ground, although it was down nearly 4% on Tuesday.
