Bitcoin lost 15% of its value in the space of 12 hours, and many altcoins performed even worse.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been wiped off the total market cap of global cryptocurrencies after a dramatic sell-off.
At one point, Bitcoin plunged to lows of $45,290.59 — losing 15% of its value in the space of 12 hours. Very quickly, the misery spread to altcoins.
Ether fell to $1,378 on Tuesday morning in Europe, a stark contrast to prices of $2,036 that were seen over the weekend. The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency is now clinging on to $1,500.
BTC Drags Down Altcoins
All of this serves as a stark reminder that the success of the cryptocurrency market is hugely reliant on the success of Bitcoin, and a fall in BTC’s value can drag smaller coins down with it.
Litecoin fell by over 20%, Chainlink took a 19% nosedive, and Bitcoin Cash was very badly hit — nursing losses of about 27% at one point.
According to the Bybt tracker, crypto exchanges have liquidated $5.47 billion worth of traders’ overleveraged positions, with over 600,000 traders liquidated over the last day.
In another controversial move from Elon Musk over the weekend, he tweeted that the price of Bitcoin “seems high” and that the token is a “less dumb” version of cash.
On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had said:
"Bitcoin is an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions and the amount of energy that's consumed in processing those transactions is staggering."
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has also weighed in on the conversation, telling Bloomberg that he’s “not bullish on Bitcoin” — with retail investors often buying into bubbles.
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