On Friday afternoon, the price of bitcoin took a significant dip, falling by 8% to just over $67,200. This decline comes after the cryptocurrency reached a peak of nearly $73,800 the day prior, according to trading data.

The largest drop in bitcoin's price was observed on Binance, the leading cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. At approximately 09:40 GMT, bitcoin recorded an 8.15% decrease to $67,228, before rebounding to $68,200 by 13:40 GMT.

Data from CoinMarketCap, a platform that calculates the average price across more than 20 exchanges, indicated that bitcoin was trading at $66,076 as of 09:15 GMT.

Thursday witnessed bitcoin hitting an all-time high of $73,777, surpassing the previous record of $69,000 set in November 2021.

Since the beginning of March, bitcoin's price has seen a cumulative increase of 9%, following a remarkable surge of over 40% in February. This surge propelled bitcoin's value from $42,600 at the end of January to over $61,000.

Read more: Bitcoin crosses $50,000 mark, records two-year high

Bitcoin to exceed $100,000 per token

A report by CNBC in December 2023 cited industry analysts who stated that Bitcoin is anticipated to keep surging in 2024, to possibly all-time highs of over $100,000 per token.

Compared to the trading figure of $16,500 at the start of 2023, Bitcoin has rallied over 160% and traded at over $44,200 at the end of 2023.

CEO of Ledger, Pascal Gauthier, was quoted by CNBC saying, "It feels that [2023] was a year to get ready for the bull run that is yet to come. But the sentiment is very hopeful for [2024] and 25". 

In November 2021, Bitcoin hit a record high of almost $69,000, but nearly $1.4 trillion was erased from the market last year due to sector bankruptcies which came after the collapse of FTX, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange at the time.