Bitcoin, Altcoins Fluctuate while Stocks Rally on COVID-19 Vaccine News

Bitcoin (BTC) and other major coins extended their decline today, while stocks rally on the major vaccine news.

It has been revealed that the COVID-19 vaccine that is being developed by American pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer Inc. and German biotechnology company BioNTech SE prevented more than 90% of symptomatic infections in a study of tens of thousands of volunteers, Bloomberg reported. The trial started in July, with the vaccine being tested in a two-dose regimen. Most participants only received their second dose recently, so it’s not known how long any protection will last, said the article.

US President-elect Joe Biden published a statement, congratulating the team for this “breakthrough,” but warning that the reality remains unchanged, that the fight against the pandemic continues, and that “a mask remains a more potent weapon against the virus than a vaccine.” Even if some Americans are vaccinated later this year as an earlier timeline predicted, “it will be many more months before there is widespread vaccination in this country.”

Meanwhile, crypto market, initially, turned red following the news, later trimming its losses. BTC was down to around USD 14,915, before returning above the USD 15,000 level again. At pixel time (17:18 UTC), BTC trades at USD 15,174 and is down by 2% in a day.

Ethereum (ETH) is not having a better time either, as its price fell more than 2% in a day. Among the top 10, the coin with the largest drop at the moment is litecoin (LTC), with (-4%), though bitcoin cash (BCH) and cardano (ADA) are near – (-2.6%) and (-3.3%) respectively.

On the other hand, per Bloomberg, Pfizer shares rose 7%, and BioNTech American depositary receipts are up some 19%.

As for US stock market indices, S&P 500 jumped some 2.9%, while DOW 30 is up more than 3.8%. Nasdaq increased less than 1%.

Yet, precious metals took a tumble. Gold has dropped nearly 5%, and silver more than 6.5%

Many in the Cryptoverse have commented that BTC is correlated with gold as well as with equities, and while it went down with gold today, that might change tomorrow.

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(Updated at 17:21 UTC to add the latest changes in the crypto market).