Bitcoin wipes out 2021 gains, pulling down MicroStrategy, miners stocks

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has sunk to late 2020 levels, wiping out any gains made last year, as investors shun risk assets in the wake of Terra's (UST-USD) collapse. That rattled the crypto space at a time when persistent inflation points to an increasingly tight monetary policy, i.e., higher interest rates. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin (BTC-USD), the biggest crypto by market cap, has dropped ~10% to $28.5K. It touched as low as $26.4K earlier Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap data. That's pulling down the stocks of bitcoin-holder MicroStrategy (MSTR), bitcoin miners, and others in the crypto sphere. Over the weekend, TerraUSD (UST-USD), the third largest stablecoin by market cap, lost its peg to the U.S. dollar, and has been dropping since. Recently, it traded at $0.495. UST is backed by an algorithm rather than actual assets. And fresh data on Wednesday showed that inflation remains a macroeconomic worry. April's consumer price