Cryptocurrencies worldwide saw a huge decline in value over the last 24 hours after a sell-off impacted stocks from a variety of providers.
Just over 30 days ago, cryptocurrencies were trading at an all-time high, with a total market value of over $100 billion. Since then, the market for the alternative currency has been in near free-fall, losing close to 50% of its value. The total market size is now valued at about $60 billion.
Cryptocurrencies like XRP and Ether, which are responsible for the majority of the Ethereum blockchain, both lost a quarter of their value in the last 24 hours. Ether and XRP are part of the Ripple Consensus Ledger, but reports on other currencies’ health in the ledger have not yet been reported.
Also seeing market dips was Bitcoin, the most popular and well-known cryptocurrency. It fell below $2,000 per share before markets closed yesterday. This is the lowest price its seen since mid-May.
Similar to trends seen across the market, distributed payment systems like Bitcoin have all seen declines of an average of 40% since their record highs less than a month ago. Since June, Bitcoin has lost nearly $1,000 of value per share from $3,000 a share to approximately $1,800 per share – the lowest recorded price on the Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) in over 60 months.
Although almost all crytocurrencies posted losses this past week, up-and-coming currencies like Mooncoin and SIBcoin saw rallies on their stock before the markets closed. Although markets continue to adjust to an influx of new currencies and ledgers, the future of crytocurrencies still looks bright.
Some analysts believe this sell-off isn’t indicative of a future collapse of Bitcoin and its competitors, but is the byproduct of many new traders flooding the market to take advantage of soaring prices in the last few weeks.
Dil Bole Oberoi
