Bitcoin falls below $80,000 (about Rs 2.21 crore), lowest in over a month, on US Middle East evacuations

Bitcoin slipped below $80,000 on Saturday 24 October for the first time in more than a month, trading at about $79,700, down 2.2% in 24 hours, CoinDesk reported. At the interbank dollar rate of Rs 276.82, one bitcoin is worth about Rs 2.21 crore.

The rest of the market

CoinDesk's CD20 index of large coins fell about 3%.

Why it fell

The trigger was a Wall Street Journal report on Saturday morning that the US is quickly evacuating staff from embassies and military bases across the Middle East, on intelligence that Iran is preparing attacks on Americans. That goes well beyond the earlier order for some diplomats to leave Saudi Arabia. US Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday that "Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel", and President Trump has threatened renewed action against Iran after the early November midterms.

Bitcoin had already been under pressure: US spot bitcoin ETFs lost $635 million in a single day this week (our story), and the price failed at $84,800 on 22 October (our story). Weekend trading is thinner, so moves on headlines can be sharper.

What it means in Pakistan

Most Pakistanis who hold crypto price it in dollars on international exchanges and convert at the market rate. At today's interbank rate a $1,000 fall in bitcoin takes roughly Rs 2.77 lakh off a whole coin at today's interbank rate. Track the daily price with history on our bitcoin data page and ether data page, and convert amounts with the currency converter.