The cryptocurrency sell-off has resumed with renewed intensity with most major coins down, plunging 20% to 30% or more in just the last 24 hours.
Fast News
- Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, has fared the best by comparison, down by 7.89% at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Ethereum — the second-largest cryptocurrency — is down another 10.23%. Both BTC and ETH have now lost half their value from all-time highs set just last month.
- Many experts are attributing the crypto market’s latest plunge to the news that Huobi, a major cryptocurrency exchange, reportedly will now scale back some of its offerings due to China’s increasingly hard line stance against crypto trading.
- Even though Huobi is being called the specific catalyst for today’s plunge, it’s only latest in a barrage of negative news that has repeatedly battered the crypto sector in the last few weeks. Aside from a crackdown on crypto mining in China, Elon Musk — who had been a champion of crypto — announced that Tesla is turning away from Bitcoin. There are also indications that tougher crypto regulations could be coming to the U.S.
- “When it rains, it pours. Bad news continues to flow in and weight on crypto markets. Over the week, an exit scam (“DeFi100”) blatantly stole $32mil worth of investors’ funds and leaving a message mocking the gullible buyers,” said Justin d’Anethan, sales manager at Equos crypto exchange, in an interview this morning with Forkast.News. “On top of that, over the week, Huobi reportedly will stop hosting Chinese miners. OKEx and Huobi might also be putting restrictions on Chinese customers.”
- “Those are a lot of reasons for investors to be uncertain and look for safety,” d’Anethan added. “For some, that means cash, for others, that means BTC. Alts are clearly underperforming with the BTC Dominance rising to 46 (coming from 39 just earlier last week).”
- The total cryptocurrency market cap has fallen nearly 10% to around US1.4 trillion. Bitcoin and Ether are now trading at about US$35,300 and US$2,150 respectively.