Bitcoin, alt-coins slump as COVID variant worries spread across globe

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) drops more than 20% from its all-time high of almost $69K earlier this month, as the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap retraces to levels last seen in early October. After reaching its record high on Nov. 9 of ~$68.8K on Nov. 10, bitcoin (BTC-USD) has been drifting lower. But it got an extra push down, falling 8.0% to $54.3K in the past 24 hours as investors turned to safer haven investments after news of a worrying new COVID variant from South Africa. U.K. health officials said the new variant, called B.1.1.529, is the most significant variant discovered as it could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines. The variant has also been found in Hong Kong and Botswana, but has not been detected in the U.K. yet, the U.K. Health Security Agency said, according to Reuters. Ether (ETH-USD) drops 9.3% to $4.03K. Alt-coins Cardano (ADA-USD) loses 9.6%, Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) -8.2%, Cryptocoin