San Francisco, Jun 14 (IANS): Top cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) further nosedived to around $21,000 per coin on Tuesday, a level it saw some five years ago.

It was hovering around Rs 20,000-Rs 21,000 per BTC as the global crypto market crashed owing to the weak macroeconomic environment and systemic risk from within the crypto space.

Bitcoin has fallen for nearly 12 straight weeks, from nearly $49,000 in March to around $21,000.

It showed some signs of bottoming out in mid-May but worrying US inflation data did "little to cushion falling sentiment", reports Coindesk.

Bitcoin nosedived after crypto lending platform Celsius announced that it was pausing all withdrawals citing "extreme market conditions".

"Due to extreme market conditions, today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts," the firm wrote in a memo to clients.

Bitcoin (BTC) had reached an all-time high of over $68,000 in November 2021, and has fallen more than 60 per cent since then.

According to analysts, Bitcoin may hit a grim $14,000 this year at this rate.

The likely bottom range at $14,000 would represent a drop of around 80 per cent for Bitcoin from the $68,000 all-time high.

"In the next 670 days, BTC will capitulate in the next 6 months and hit cycle bottom ($14-21k), then chop around $28-40k in most of 2023 and be at $40k again by next halving," tweeted Venturefounder, a contributor at on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant.

At $1,158 per coin, Ethereum prices were also hammered, sending the world's second-largest digital asset back below its 2018 peak.