Friday night brought a wave of distress for crypto traders as the entire crypto market turned red, signalling a significant drop in prices across major crypto assets. This resulted in a staggering loss of $80 billion from the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, echoing a similar trend observed the previous Friday.
The sharp price decline affected Bitcoin and altcoins, sparing no crypto asset and inflicting substantial losses on short-term holders.
Bitcoin, which was trading around the $69,000 level last Friday, dropped over $2,000, falling to $67,000. Over the weekend, there was minimal price action, and Bitcoin maintained its position at $67,000.
As Monday arrived, Bitcoin briefly surged past $70,000 and continued to hover above this mark throughout the week, reaching a 2-week high of $72,000 on Friday.
However, as Friday evening approached, the downward trend repeated, with Bitcoin witnessing a significant price drop, plummeting to $68,500. Although the crypto asset has since recovered slightly to $69,000, the price drop remains at a substantial 2.7%.
Altcoins, which encompass crypto assets other than Bitcoin, experienced an even more severe downturn during the crypto market’s Friday meltdown.
Ethereum, the largest altcoin, saw a 3.5% decrease, dropping below $3,700. Binance Coin, after reaching an all-time high of $710, fell to under $690, while Solana experienced a drop of over 6%.
Numerous other smaller altcoins, including Dogecoin, Avalanche, Chainlink, Polkadot, NEAR, UNI, and MATIC, recorded price drops exceeding 5% during the Friday night meltdown.
Some altcoins, such as WIF, ARB, and FET, saw massive double-digit price drops, while FIL was the only altcoin to record a gain during the meltdown.
The recurring Friday meltdown in crypto markets, driving down prices across the board, is emerging as a notable trend.
Key Points to Note:
- Bitcoin’s market capitalization has decreased from over $1.4 trillion to $1.366 trillion. Despite this, Bitcoin remains dominant over altcoins, as altcoins experienced more severe drops during the meltdown.
- The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies lost approximately $80 billion within hours, dropping to under $2.7 trillion.
- Market capitalization, calculated by multiplying a cryptocurrency’s current price by its circulating supply, reflects its total value. The circulating supply refers to the number of coins in users’ wallets.
