Bitcoin Hits Six-Month Low as Crypto Market Plummets

The global crypto market cap has fallen to $1.7 trillion after a downturn affecting Bitcoin and the rest of the market. 

Bitcoin Dips to $34,000

The crypto market is in freefall. 

Bitcoin opened the weekend with another dramatic dip following Thursday’s market wipeout. The number one crypto is down 7.6% in the last 24 hours and briefly tested $34,000 earlier this morning. It’s currently trading at around $35,600, down around 48% from its all-time high. Bitcoin last hit $34,000 in July 2021. 

Many other crypto assets were hit harder during the crash. Ethereum briefly dipped below $2,350 after shaving off 11.1%. Solana fell below $100 for the first time since August of last year, while other Layer 1 coins like Terra and Avalanche have also plummeted (they’re respectively down 12.6% and 15.2%). 

Early Ethereum DeFi tokens are also trading in the red. Compound is down 15%, Uniswap has dropped by 14.1%, and Aave has lost 15.3%. The so-called Metaverse tokens that dominated the market in late 2021 were among the biggest losers in the selloff. The Sandbox fell by 16.2%, while Decentraland and Axie Infinity dipped by 17.9% and 17.6%. 

The latest dip comes after the market dropped in tandem with traditional markets early Friday. Big Tech stocks like Netflix and Amazon had a particularly bad end to the week; Netflix dropped over 20% Friday after it revealed that competitors were eating away at its market share over video streaming in its worst day since 2012. Amazon fell 5.95% to record its worst week since December 2018. The Nasdaq Composite, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the S&P 500 all slid Friday. 

It’s been a rocky start to 2022 for crypto and financial markets. The recent selloffs have been attributed in large part to the Federal Reserve after it announced that it was planning three interest rate hikes this year. In such conditions, risk-on assets tend to suffer as the cost of borrowing money becomes more expensive. Other factors such as the Omicron variant and a potential Russian war have also escalated fears among investors. 

As for crypto, prices have been sliding across the market since November. While lower cap coins have occasionally rallied in recent weeks, major assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum have largely struggled to gain any notable momentum since hitting highs of $69,000 and $4,800 on Nov. 10. At the time, the global cryptocurrency market was over $3 trillion. Today it’s closer to $1.7 trillion, down about 43%.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH, FTM, and several other cryptocurrencies. They also had exposure to COMP, UNI, and AAVE in a cryptocurrency index.