$70B Gone From Crypto Markets as SEC Cracks Down on CEXs: Market Watch

Bitcoin slumped by over $1,000 in the past 24 hours to a three-week low below $22,000 as the SEC officially went after crypto staking.

Most altcoins are bleeding out just as badly, with ADA, DOGE, OKB, SOL, DOT, and many others dumping by over 5% in a day.

BTC Dumps Below $22K

It was at the start of the month, following the latest US Fed interest rate hike when the largest cryptocurrency skyrocketed to $24,300 (on Bitstamp) to chart a five-month high. However, the tides turned at that point as the bears reminded of their presence.

BTC was not only unable to sustain above $24,000 but dropped back down to $23,000 days later. It spent the weekend around that level on low trading volumes before it tried to overcome the latter once again earlier this week, but to no avail.

As such, bitcoin remained stuck in a familiar range close to $23,000. This is when the landscape changed as the rumors of the SEC cracking down on crypto staking actually materialized, and the regulator went after Kraken.

In the following hours, BTC slumped by approximately $1,500 and fell to a three-week low of $21,600. Despite recovering a few hundred dollars now, bitcoin is still more than 3% down on the day. Its market cap is down to $420 billion, while its dominance over the altcoins is at 41.4%.

Altcoins in Red

The altcoins have also turned red on a daily scale following the SEC’s actions. Ethereum is down by 5% in a day and struggles at $1,550. Just for reference, ETH stood well above $1,700 until days ago.

Binance Coin, Ripple, Polygon, Litecoin, and Tron have declined by up to 4% in a day. Even more losses are evident from Cardano, Dogecoin, OKB, Solana, Polkadot, and Shiba Inu have slumped by up to 8%.

The situation with the lower- and mid-cap altcoins is similar, as most have dropped by between 5-10%. As such, it’s no wonder that the cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has slumped by $70 billion in a day and stands just inches above $1 trillion.