It has been a season of sell-offs in the fast-evolving market. According to CoinMarketCap, the combined market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has fallen below a trillion dollars, indicating that the market is firmly immersed in “crypto winter.”
Bitcoin was trading around $23,200 at press time, down 16% for the day. Ether (ETH), the Ethereum blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, fell 18% to $1,222.
The next two-day Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting begins today and concludes on Wednesday with a statement and press conference by Chair Jerome Powell.
What you should know
- The latest drop came when the huge crypto lender Celsius, which claimed to possess at least 150,000 bitcoin worth $3.5 billion at current values as recently as April, ceased withdrawals. (Another cryptocurrency company, Nexo, has expressed interest in purchasing part of the platform’s assets.)
- It was a day of fast-paced events and pronouncements, all of which seemed to confirm how gloomy the crypto markets had become.
- For the first time since early 2021, the total market capitalization of digital assets lost over $300 billion dollars in a span of a few days with significant losses in tokens such as Solana and meme coins. MicroStrategy (MSTR) led the decline in crypto-related stocks.
- The pioneer crypto-asset withdrawals have been temporarily halted on Binance (reportedly due to technical issues) but at the time of writing it was back online.
- Crypto.com and BlockFi, a cryptocurrency lender, both announced employment cutbacks. Sentiment for cryptos is horrible. Tron’s USDD stablecoin wobbled off its $1 peg. Bitcoin is attempting to create a base, but if it falls below $20,000, things could become considerably worse.
- As the broader markets were under significant pressure, the agony in digital assets increased. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 4% to a new all-time low for the year. The main cause seems to be fresh investor concerns that the US Federal Reserve may be forced to tighten monetary policy forcefully in order to combat inflation, which is at its highest level in four decades.
The flagship crypto had its biggest decrease in a year as indicators emerged that the steep correction in crypto markets is harming significant industry participants and placing digital-asset projects under a lot of stress.
