Manila Bulletin

Bitcoin drops below $6,000

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Filinvest Land, Inc., one of the country’s largest developers, reported that it has broken ground for the second phase of Meridian Place, a project under its value homes brand Futura.

“We are humbled that Phase I is selling faster than we expected. The ground breaking for Phase 2 is an affirmatio­n of our clients’ support for this project,” said Filinvest Senior Vice President for South West North Luzon cluster Rey Ascaño.

He added that, “we are also proud that we are able to serve the increasing demand for quality homes that are easy on the pocket.”

Located in General Trias, Cavite, Meridian Place offers a safe neighborho­od, gated community, quality residentia­l units, recreation­al amenities, and facilities to help families live in comfort every day.

Ascaño believes that residentia­l

TOKYO (AFP) – Bitcoin plunged more than 20 percent to fall below $6,000 on Tuesday, its latest sharp loss following a series of setbacks, with a global stock market collapse fuelling the selling.

The virtual currency fell to $5,992 for the first time since mid-November, according to Bloomberg News, the latest hammering for the cryptocurr­ency that saw a stratosphe­ric 26-fold rise last year.

Tuesday's collapse comes just six weeks after bitcoin hit a record high of $19,511, fuelled by a flood of speculator­s looking to make a quick buck.

Since those heady days the cryptomark­et – which includes dozens of other units – has been pounded by news of crackdowns by government­s including in China, Russia and South Korea, one of the biggest markets for the sector.

On Thursday, India said it would ''take all measures to eliminate'' cryptocurr­encies' use as part of a payment system and in funding illegitima­te activities, while Japanese authoritie­s raided a virtual currency exchange after it lost $530 million to hackers.

Central banks in Europe, Japan and the United States have also flagged concerns about the unit. This week several commercial lenders said they would stop allowing their customers to buy bitcoin through their credit cards owing to debt concerns.

Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda, said ''the dynamics behind the moves are regulatory clampdowns and investors losing confidence in crypto''.

The sell-off on Tuesday was exacerbate­d by crushing losses on world stock markets, with the Dow on Wall Street suffering its biggest one-day points loss and wiping out all its 2018 gains.

Panicked investors are fretting over rising US borrowing costs, leading them to cash in profits after a stellar couple of months that have seen many indexes hit record or all-time highs.

Equities have enjoyed months of surges fuelled by optimism over the US economy, corporate earnings and the global outlook.

But while traders have been piling into equities, pushing many global indexes to record or multi-year highs, there has been growing concern on trading floors about elevated US Treasury bond yields – at four-year highs – and the likelihood of fresh Federal Reserve interest rate rises.

''The risk-off tone is hitting Bitcoin almost as hard as a global regulator and bank scrutiny,'' said Greg McKenna, chief market strategist at AxiTrader. ''The latest dent to the Cryptospac­e has been banks saying they are shutting down the ability of clients to buy bitcoin with their cards.''

''This could end up a full round trip back into the $1,850/$2,966 region.'' projects such as Meridian Place can help provide the needs and aspiration­s of Filipino families to own a home.

“We also hope to cater to OFWs, they remain as one of the main driving forces of the property industry with more than 60 percent of remittance­s go to real-estate investment­s,” he said.

Ascaño also noted the timely developmen­t of Meridian Place now that a growing number of housing projects are moving further away from Metro Manila to the rural-urban fringe cities such as Cavite.

“In Meridian Place you can escape the heavily congested city life and enjoy fresh air and clean surroundin­gs in a community like this,” he said.

Meridian Place boasts of three model units namely Bernice, Caroline and Danessa, with latter following the brand’s cast-in-place (buhos tibay) signature feature. Buyers can choose from floor areas ranging from 27-37 sqm and lot sizes between 60-75 sqm.

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