Bitcoin plummets after Queen Elizabeth II expresses interest

Queen Elizabeth II received a blockchain journal in the post and said she "much appreciated the thoughtful gesture".
Queen Elizabeth II received a blockchain journal in the post and said she "much appreciated the thoughtful gesture". Photo credit: Getty

The price of Bitcoin has plunged after almost reaching an all-time high - just as The Queen expressed interest to learn more about cryptocurrency.

Queen Elizabeth II was "left delighted" after learning about Bitcoin this week, the Daily Express reported on Tuesday.

The 94-year-old received a blockchain journal in the post, according to a letter from her office, and reported she "much appreciated the thoughtful gesture".

Bitcoin jumped by about US$1000 earlier this week, reaching its three-year high of US$19,666.

But then on Friday (NZ time), the price plummeted to US$17,123 - a decrease of 8.37 percent in the past 24 hours.

Financial Times reporter Jemima Kelly, who was the first to write about the Queen's enthusiasm for learning more about blockchain, says perhaps the story sent the coin mooning before crashing shortly afterwards.

"We weren't convinced that our 94-year-old monarch was really that interested in Byzantine Fault Tolerance and proof-of-work mechanisms," Financial Times reporter Jemima Kelly writes.

"But some people got very excited about it nonetheless."

"The CEO of Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, tweeted our story saying 'I wonder how many #Bitcoin she has'." She added.

But Kelly says, despite what the Queen said, Bitcoin is truly hard to predict.

"Sometimes it does well in, when risk appetite is low; sometimes it does badly."

"That all makes the price pretty much impossible to predict."