By
Temitope Olatunji
April 26th, 2024
Cryptocurrency bloodbath continues as the overall market cap slips below $120 billion. In just last 12 days, crypto markets lost a whopping $89 billion.
It’s quite a rocky ride for the cryptocurrency market as the pain of investors gets worst every passing week. According to the charts on CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency market has lost $16 billion valuations in just the last 24-hours. This turns out to be a nose dive for the crypto market which lost a whopping $89 billion, or we can say a 40% erosion over the last 12 days. The overall market cap of the cryptocurrency market stands at $120 billion at the press time.
Bitcoin Crashes Below $4000
The crypto market is beating investors expectations black and blue as the bears turn ruthless. Bitcoin (BTC) price crashed 15% in the last 24-hours to pull it below $4000. Bitcoin is currently trading at $3743 with a market cap of $65.1 billion. Two days back, CoinSpeaker reported that Bitcoin’s second layer scalability solution Lightning Network registered 300% jump in network capacity over the last ten days. But it looks like nothing seems to be working in favor of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
In less than a weeks time, Bitcoin lost more than $1000 price to make a new low since September 2017. Also, Bitcoin price drop remains quite in line with the overall market scenario. In the last 12 days, Bitcoin has registered a 40% price erosion and thus in its valuation. Furthermore, the much-awaited launch of ICE’s Bakkt platform before 2018-end is now delayed to the end of January 2019. This has further lowered any possible chances of Bitcoin price recovery taking place in the immediate future.
Altcoins Take a Heavy Beating
It’s not just Bitcoin adding up to today’s market woes. The altcoin space still continues to be the worst performer with all of the top 20 cryptocurrencies showing double-digit losses.
XRP which managed to hold-off its price pretty finally gave up the fight with the bears today. The XRP price dropped by 16% and is currently trading at a price of $0.34 with a market cap of $13.8 billion. However, XRP still continues its position as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
On the other hand, Ethereum (ETH) price crash continues to spiral downwards. Ethereum (ETH) is currently trading at a price of $106 with a market cap of $10.9 billion. In the last 24-hours, Ethereum has lost 14.9% of its price making a new low for the year.
Crypto Miners Facing the Brunt
The latest market crash has made a deep impact on the operations of cryptocurrency miners. As crypto market posts heavy losses, miners find it difficult to match their profits against the cost of mining. Lower Bitcoin price is making it less profitable to mine the cryptocurrency. In a Tweet last Monday, eToro senior analyst Mati Greenspan wrote:
“Bitcoin hashrate is now the lowest it’s been since August. It’s still up sharply since the start of the year but it seems clear that some miners are shutting down their rigs in face of lower BTC prices.”
Not to forget that the ongoing hash war in Bitcoin Cash has seen several Bitcoin mining pool devoting their resources to the Bitcoin derivative. This is also another reason behind the drop in the BTC hash rate.