Wild Fears About Chernobyl-Style Nuclear Meltdown Send Bitcoin Lower Overnight

Bitcoin extended its losses through the second half of the week, testing a floor of $40,000 earlier today before rebounding slightly. The drawdown stems from growing uncertainty about the trajectory of the Ukrainian conflict and preparations for expected rate increases from the Fed when it meets in two weeks.

However, the most immediate catalyst was fears of a Chernobyl-style nuclear meltdown in southeastern Ukraine after the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant briefly caught on fire during a battle last night around 8:00pm EST. While nuclear experts expressed confidence that such an event was unlikely to happen, uncertainty about the location of the fire and other key details led to growing fear.

As news started to speak, the price of bitcoin dropped almost 4%, from $42,652 to just above $41,000. The fire has since been extinguished, and Russian troops have taken over the plant, but concern about the future trajectory of the war as it potentially enters a more violent stage persist.

Bitcoin is down 4.79% over the past 24 hours, but the biggest laggards are Solana (7.86%), Uniswap (7.43%), and Dash (7.2%), according to data from Nomics. Ether is also down 6.39%.

However, with the exception of Uniswap, all of these tokens remain positive for the week.

The biggest leaders over the past 24 hours are Celo (4.17%), Cosmos (3.63%), and Waves (3.00%).