Cryptocurrency bubble bursts wiping out people’s life savings overnight

People who put their life savings into cryptocurrencies face losing their homes after a massive and sudden crash in their value.

More than $200billion has been wiped off the cryptocurrency market today alone, as investors are sent into a panic.

Ethereum, the world’s second largest digital currency plummeted by 20% in the space of 24 hours.

Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency started in 2009, dropped by 9%, but overall it is down 50% since its all time high in November.

Chaos on the market has seen other currencies such as Shiba Inu and Dogecoin losing 30% and 25%, respectively.

Meanwhile Terra Luna, which was among the top 10 most valuable cryptocurrencies had 98% of its value wiped out overnight, falling to below one dollar per coin.

Its Reddit page had a suicide hotline pinned to it, as users of the site shared their devastating losses.

One member wrote: ‘I lost all my life savings. Had bought Luna at $85, not sure what to do.’

Another said they’d lost $15,000 (£12,3000) after failing to sell their holdings when Terra Luna was trading above $100 last month.

They wrote: ‘I should’ve cashed out when it was $100, then I would have been up $25,000.

‘But I got greedy hoping to get more money so I can at least afford a downpayment for a house for my family. I guess no house and savings then.’

Another member of the r/terraluna subreddit wrote: ‘I lost over $450,000, I cannot pay the bank. I will lose my home soon. I’ll become homeless.’

At one point, leading crypto exchange Binance temporarily suspended withdrawals on the currency, preventing people from selling.

The Cayman Islands-based exchange said this was due to ‘high volume of pending withdrawal transactions… caused by network slowness and congestion’.

Meanwhile Coinbase, another widely used trading platform, issued a warning that customers could lose all their money if the exchange goes bankrupt.

The website, which has more than 98million verified users, has already seen its value drop by 27% since the recent crypto crash.

In an attempt to calm investors, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted: ‘Your funds are safe at Coinbase, just as they’ve always been.’

But in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company said customers are considered ‘unsecured creditors’ in the event the firm collapsed.

This means their crypto assets would be considered the property of Coinbase by bankruptcy administrators, MailOnline reports.

More than $200billion has been wiped off the cryptocurrency market today alone, and some fear this could be a sign of wider stock market crash.

Amazon stocks have plunged by 30% within a month, while a number of other US tech firms are suffering.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has fallen by 36% in the past month as the CEO attempts to buy Twitter.

The entrepreneur has heavily influenced prices with his comments on Bitcoin and Dogecoin with his comments on the currencies.

At point point, he said Tesla would accept Bitcoin as a method of payment before cancelling the plans.

The FTSE 100 was down 2.5% this morning after official figures showed the UK economy growing slower than expected in the first quarter.

Fears are growing that we could be heading towards a repeat of the ‘dotcom bubble burst’ of the early 2000s.

As more and more people had access to computers and the internet in the late 1990s, there was a flurry of speculative trading in tech companies.

Companies with a ‘.com’ suffix ended up being valued very highly as a result of the boom.

But after the US Federal Reserve increased interest rates, trading dipped and caused the bubble to burst, sending stock prices crashing.

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