Bitcoin tumbles as cryptocurrency’s 2019 surge starts to waver

Bitcoin slumped, undoing some of this year’s epic rally and amplifying a recent trend of outsized weekend moves.

The price of the largest cryptocurrency fell 11% since Friday and traded at $10 901.43 as of 8:15 a.m. in Tokyo. It’s still up about 200% since the start of the year. Other coins also dropped: Ethereum -4.2%, Ripple -5.1%.

Optimism surrounding a potential increase in adoption of cryptocurrencies helped fuel price increases on Bitcoin at an accelerating rate last month. That took prices back to levels last seen at the start of 2018. The slide over the weekend is at odds with recent moves higher on Saturday and Sunday: surges in weekend activity since the start of May account for about 40% of Bitcoin’s price gains this year, according to Bloomberg data.

Read: Weekends are the Wild West for bitcoin, but nobody knows why

© 2019 Bloomberg L.P.