A sharp drop in the value of the top 20 cryptocurrencies has been reported on Sunday, with some reporting damaging losses in spite of earlier market gains. The most critical drop occurred within the space of under half an hour.
Bitcoin (BTC) recorded a high of $4,150 before plummeting to under $3,900 by the time of reporting, according to infographic Coin360 data.
At the start of the week, Bitcoin was priced at $3,632, which is 5% under its current price. After its mid-day high of $4,210, it fell dramatically to $3,806, ending the day almost 10% under its earlier peak.
Bitcoin’s fluctuating value has recently seen a surge, with the world’s leading derivatives marketplace CME Group documenting that the uptake in Bitcoin’s futures volumes hit over 18 thousand contracts being traded, a record for BTC.
The altcoin market leader Ethereum (ETH) is still maintaining its position as the dominant altcoin by market cap with a recorded value of $14.5 billion, by press time. This is closely followed by Ripple (XRP) second-largest altcoin whose respective market cap is currently valued at $12.4 billion.
However, in the last 24 hours, ETH has seen significant losses, falling almost 9% in the space of a day according to CoinMarketCap. At the time of press release, ETH is currently trading at an estimated $139, $9 lower than its value of $148 at the start of the day. Its current value stands at around 16% lower than its mid-day high of $165.
Figures of ETH’s weekly chart, however, has seen a value increase of 9% from its starting point of $126 at the beginning of the week’s trading.
In contrast, its competitor, Ripple has seen a loss of almost 7% during 24 hours and is now trading at an estimated $0.301, which is nearly 12% lower than the high of $0.34 it enjoyed earlier today.
XRP’s weekly chart shows slow growth in value, with reversed gains, leaving Ripple up a small fraction of a percent from the start of the week’s trading.
The most significant and noteworthy losses in the top 20 cryptocurrencies are Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum Classic, which have all dropped by double figures of around 10% at the time of press release.
In fact, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies peaked at a high of nearly $144 billion earlier today, which plummeted to $127 billion by press time; cryptocurrencies suffered a collective loss of $15 billion in a few hours. This fall has been one of the most significant in the cryptocurrency market.
Liechtenstein-based Bank Frick is currently launching an institutional cryptocurrency trading platform subsidiary according to Cointelegraph. This comes after an earlier report suggested that the Russian State Duma is planning to review and undertake new cryptocurrency regulations next month, followed by the possible proposal of an oil-backed cryptocurrency by the country’s former energy minister, Igor Yusufov.
What do you think where the reasons for the sell-off?
