Crypto Markets Shed $60B (Market Watch)

The price of bitcoin headed straight south after briefly exceeding $20,000 on the highest trading volumes recorded for the past several months.

The alternative coins, which were riding high yesterday, have turned red today, except for QNT – 10% surge.

Bitcoin Rejected at $20K

Ever since last week’s price drop to $18,100 propelled by the US Fed’s latest interest rate hike, the primary cryptocurrency had calmed around $19,000. In fact, it spent most of the weekend there, with little to no movement.

Then came Monday, and BTC slipped to $18,600. However, the asset went on the offensive on Tuesday and spiked by more than $1,500 in hours. As a result, it skyrocketed to a 12-day high of over $20,300.

At that point, though, reports started to emerge that traders had put sell orders at the $20,000 lines, which suggested upcoming price drops. Such indeed transpired, and bitcoin slumped back down to $18,500 hours later.

This came as the trading volumes shot up to their highest levels in over three months, according to Santiment.

📊 Trading volume has heated up for #crypto markets, and especially #Bitcoin. During the big leg down on Tuesday, $BTC peaked at its highest level of trading since June 14th. Volume has gradually risen all year since bottoming out in late January. https://t.co/jbT7GMDj3n pic.twitter.com/c0Bnm7Jl52

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) September 28, 2022

Altcoins Back in Red

The alternative coins also enjoyed yesterday’s trading day, but the situation is entirely different now.

Ethereum jumped to $1,400 after days of struggling at $1,300. However, a more than 7% decline in the past 24 hours has pushed the second-largest crypto back below the latter.

Binance Coin, Cardano, Solana, Dogecoin, Polkadot, MATIC, and Avalanche have all decreased by similar percentages.

Ripple has suffered the most from the top 10 alts. XRP is down by more than 12% in a day to $0.42.

Aside from QNT, which is 10% up on the day, the remaining mid- and lower-cap altcoins are also deep in the red.

As such, it’s no surprise that the cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has seen $70 billion evaporate daily, and the metric is down to just over $900 billion.