Bitcoin and Ethereum Down 3%, Top Altcoins Fall as Market Sees Red

Bitcoin (BTC) is down 2.8% over the past 24 hours, falling from a high of $28,280 to its recent low of $27,058, and settling on $27,368 at the time of writing, according to data from Coingecko.

The past seven days have seen a clear downtrend for the top cryptocurrency by market cap, with a high of $29,724 on May 5th, losing 6% on the week, and wiping out $45 billion from its market cap. The BTC market cap is currently sitting at $530 billion.

Ethereum, the market’s second largest cryptocurrency has also seen negative price action, with its value dropping 3.3% in the last 24 hours, trading at $1,818 at the time of writing.

These drops come amid a wider crypto market selloff, with red candles hitting major and minor altcoins. Larger cryptocurrencies such as Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Polygon (MATIC) among others are seeing losses within the 2-5% range.

Litecoin (LTC) and Monero (XMR), however, are among the few that have not seen drops in their prices.

Although the majority of losses are under 5% for major BTC, ETH and major altcoins, the past week has seen larger drops, with several of the aforementioned cryptocurrencies reaching the double digits.

According to Coingecko, the global cryptocurrency market cap today sits at $1.2 trillion, which marks a 2.5% drop over the past 24 hours.

The sudden drop in prices could be due to several reasons. On one hand, after a few days of sky high Bitcoin fees, that saw Binance pause withdrawals, fees have dropped prompting delayed selling from market participants.

Despite a momentary push higher from Bitcoin and Ethereum after April’s inflation numbers came in lower than expected, the news might have also marked a precipitous sell off from investors.

As for the broader cryptocurrency market’s losses, the majority follows Bitcoin’s lead, mimicking its price action albeit with larger price swings due to their smaller market cap.