Layer 1 and DeFi Tokens Among Hardest Hit in Latest Crypto Crash

Though Bitcoin has fallen below the key $40,000 mark and Ethereum continues to dip under $3,000, several altcoins have suffered worse losses than the crypto market leaders.

Less than 48 hours after Secret Network, a privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain project built atop the Cosmos blockchain, celebrated its $400 million ecosystem funding, SCRT, the project’s native token, fell by a hefty 17.8% to become the crypto market’s biggest loser of the day.

The price of SCRT hit a 10-week high of $9.81 on Wednesday after several prominent investment firms, including DeFiance Capital, Alameda Research, CoinFund, and HashKey, joined the Secret ecosystem as stakeholders.

As data from CoinGecko shows, in the early hours on Friday, SCRT fell to an intraday low of $6.81, returning to levels last seen a week ago.

Still, SCTR is up 18.7% in the past two weeks and as much as 61.6% over the month, trading at $7.12 by press time.

There’s less to cheer about for LRC holders, the native token of the Layer 2-based crypto exchange Loopring, as it tanked 14.8% in the past 24 hours to the levels last seen at the beginning of November 2021.

LRC lost more than 58% of its value in the last month and is currently changing hands roughly $1 per CoinGecko.

The price of NEAR, the native token of Near Protocol, has also lost its recent momentum, plummeting by 12.7% over the day to the current value of $14.58.

Several other DeFi tokens are among the hardest hit too, with Aave and Chainlink down by 11.9% and 11.9%, respectively.

The latest price action saw Aave nosedive a monthly low of $185 before a rebound to $189.55, while LINK, the market’s 21st-largest asset, is trading at $19.63, the level last seen at the start of the year.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is down 7.4% over the same span and 20% since the start of the year, trading at $39,026 at writing.

Ethereum is changing hands around $2,883, down 8.5% over the day, as CoinGecko shows. The last time the industry’s second-largest cryptocurrency was trading at these levels was at the beginning of October last year.