Yesterday, due in part to the significant disruptions it experienced, Facebook’s stock lost nearly 5% in a single session. This is one of the worst days for the FB stock in 2021.
Crypto vs: stock market: Bitcoin surpasses Facebook
With a current price of about $326 per share, Facebook’s market capitalization is about $920 million.
Yesterday, however, the price of bitcoin rose, returning above $49,000. As of today, its market capitalization is over $930 million.
Because of yesterday’s drop, Facebook’s market capitalization went down, just as bitcoin’s went up. The result was Bitcoin overtaking Facebook, which is not the first time this has happened.
This time, however, it may not be a temporary overtaking, as has happened in the past.
Facebook’s stock price reached an all-time high on 1 September 2021, just over a month ago, when it briefly exceeded $384. Since then, it has been on a downward spiral, widely expected by many analysts, which took it below $370 on 15 September and then below $350 on 20 September.
Just when it seemed that the decline was coming to a halt, on 28 September it fell below $340.
Yesterday, the price plunged to $322, before rising slightly again.
Since the highs of the beginning of September, the accumulated loss is more than 15%, so much so that the current value is lower than that of 29 April.
It is hard to imagine Facebook recovering from this situation very quickly.
Bitcoin’s favourable trend
Bitcoin, for its part, hit an all-time high in mid-April at almost $65,000 and after falling below $40,000 on 21 September, seems to be recovering strongly.
In 14 days the price has risen by 25%, and although it is still 23% below its April highs, it seems to be aiming higher than the current $49,000.
The trend therefore seems to be in Bitcoin’s favour, with Facebook possibly struggling to break through the $1 trillion market capitalization again, which seems to be within BTC’s reach.
Yesterday’s massive disruptions have only brought to light a likely underlying problem with how Facebook’s IT infrastructure is managed. The problem is likely to be company-wide, as it is believed to have been human error in the absence of any contingency plan.
The global blackout lasted almost 7 hours, during which some of the company’s employees were unable to access their offices, as the downfall also affected the building’s home automation system.
Recently, many users have been complaining of disruptions, not only on Facebook but also on Instagram, and this casts further doubt on how the IT infrastructure is managed from a technical and corporate point of view.
It is worth noting that yesterday’s stock market crash also affected many other American technology companies, including Amazon and Twitter, which suffered even greater price drops.
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