Bitcoin drops after climbing all-time high

Bitcoin fell on Monday after surging to its latest record high a day earlier as a sell-off in global equities curbed risk appetite, with some investors also citing concerns about the rapid rise in the price of the virtual currency.

The most popular cryptocurrency fell to $47,400, a one-week low. At one point, it lost nearly 17% of its value, or about $160 billion of its total market capitalization.

Bitcoin recouped some of the losses later in the trading session and was last down around 5.5% at $54 322, on track for its worst day since January 27. Its market cap was just under $1 trillion on Monday.

“Fairly standard after a rise this large to see a pullback. The usual dislocation of markets was seen,” said Charles Hayter, chief executive officer of crypto data provider CryptoCompare in London.

Traders also pointed to the unwinding of highly leveraged long positions in the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin, which rallied on Sunday to a peak of $58,354, was still up more than 80% this year. Since hitting a low in March below $4000, bitcoin has surged nearly 1,200%.

Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk, whose tweets on bitcoin have added fuel to the cryptocurrency’s rally, said on Saturday the price of bitcoin and rival cryptocurrency ethereum seemed high.