Ethereum, Solana Losses Pile Up as Bitcoin Sell-Off Sinks Crypto Market

Bitcoin (BTC) and the wider crypto market are down bad this week. But some of the biggest losers near the top of the market were once recently stars of the show, including Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and Avalanche (AVAX).

In recent weeks, all three of those top 20 cryptocurrencies were making big gains as they attracted institutional investor interest. Now, each has slipped by at least 14% over the past seven days, and have posted sizable losses on the day.

Ethereum is down sharply this morning, per data from CoinGecko, falling 7% over the past 24 hours to a current price of about $2,200 and pushing its seven-day dip to 14%.

Solana is down almost 16% over the past seven days at a current price of $82.50. It has rebounded slightly from earlier this morning, but remains down about 5% on the day.

Meanwhile AVAX, which is the 11th largest cryptocurrency, has plunged 19% on the week to a current price of just under $29. Like Solana, it has shored up some of its losses since this morning, now down about 5% over the past 24 hours.

It was just over a week ago that Ethereum came just shy of hitting $2,700, its highest price since April 2022. Excitement over Ethereum grew amid the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs as investors considered the next wave of prospective institutional adoption, particularly as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink talked up the prospect of an Ethereum spot ETF.

SOL had been on a big run starting from the end of October. It was expected to take a hit during the trial of disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, who was heavily invested in the asset via his now collapsed crypto empire, FTX.

But major companies such as Visa and Shopify sung the project’s praises and said they’d use its blockchain. A growing developer base also meant the price of SOL shot up. It rose as high as $123 in December 2023, nearing a two-year high after plunging to a price of about $8 in December 2022.

AVAX also attracted interest when investment banking giant J.P. Morgan said in November it had used the Avalanche blockchain to tokenize portfolios.

Long-term holders have reason to be optimistic, though—despite the recent dips in price, both coins over a one-year period are doing well: SOL is up 239%, while AVAX has jumped by 64%. Even Ethereum is up by 35% over the last year.

The broader crypto market has taken a nosedive as it follows the price action of the biggest digital asset by market cap, Bitcoin.

Since crypto fund Grayscale converted its flagship BTC fund into an exchange-traded fund (ETF) and started trading on the stock market, investors have been keen to redeem shares previously locked into the product.

This has put pressure on the price of the biggest and oldest digital coin in recent days.

Edited by Andrew Hayward