Bitcoin rallied from a three-month low on Monday in a volatile session that saw investors initially selling and then buying cryptocurrencies in the wake of Tesla boss Elon Musk's tweets about the carmaker's bitcoin holdings.
In his latest tweet, Musk said "Tesla has not sold any bitcoin". That seeming clarification came after weekend tweets hinted that Tesla was considering or may have already sold some of its massive holdings.
Musk has boosted crypto markets with his enthusiasm for the asset class, but has lately roiled trade by appearing to cool on bitcoin in favour of its one-time parody, dogecoin. The gyrations are beginning to spook even steeled traders.
Bitcoin fell more than nine per cent on Monday to as low as $42,185, its lowest since February 8, but rallied back to around $45,190.
Ether, linked to the ethereum blockhain, fell to as low as $3,123.94, and then bounced back to $3,540. Dogecoin fell nearly seven per cent, and all three are well under recent records.
"A nice pop, but this is small versus the Musk-induced selling that has been taking place lately," said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com. "There is nothing new I can say about bitcoin – volatile, highly speculative, easy to manipulate; a bubble.