Bitcoin BTC Price Slides Below 24.5K as European Banking Woes Spook Investors

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization dropped to $23,946 at one point before regaining ground to recently trade at $24,502, roughly flat over the 24 hours. But that was still well off BTC’s highs of the previous day when it soared past $26,000 after the release of a mildly upbeat consumer price index (CPI) inflation data for February. The 6% CPI improved on the previous month’s reading and offered investors looking for more monetary policy dovishness hope the U.S. Federal Reserve would at least temporarily stop its recent diet of interest rate hikes.