Ethereum, Solana Hit Four-Month Lows as Metaverse Tokens Tank

The bleeding hasn’t stopped: following a sizable drop in cryptocurrency prices on Thursday that only worsened as the day went on, the market is sinking even deeper into the red today. And top coins are hitting their lowest prices in months.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped as low as $37,664 early Friday, according to data from CoinGecko, marking its lowest price since late July—nearly six months ago. It’s up slightly as of this writing, to $38,356, but has still suffered an 11% loss over the last 24 hours.

It was just over two months ago that Bitcoin set a new all-time high price of nearly $69,045 on November 10. Bitcoin has shed 44% of its value since that peak.

Ethereum (ETH) has seen an even more sizable drop over the last 24 hours, falling as low as $2,757 per CoinGecko. That’s the lowest point for ETH in four months, since September 21. At a current price of $2,784, Ethereum is down almost 14% in 24 hours.

At a low today of just under $116, Solana (SOL) hit its lowest price since the start of September, when SOL made its rapid ascent into the triple-digit range. It’s up to $119, as of this writing, for a 24-hour drop of 14%, and now is down more than 52% from its November peak of nearly $256.

Overall, the cryptocurrency market is down more than 11% over the past 24 hours with a current market cap of $1.9 trillion. Other top coins with sizable losses include Avalanche (down 15%), as well as Cardano, Terra, and Polygon (each down 14%).

Metaverse collapse

Tokens for crypto games and metaverse projects have also seen significant losses of late following a propulsive rise late last year, due in part to Facebook’s highly visible metaverse push and rebranding to Meta.

The Sandbox’s SAND token is down 16% over the last 24 hours to $3.67 per CoinGecko, marking a 30% decline over the last 14 days. While still up significantly since last fall—it only topped $1 for the first time in late October—the SAND token is now 56% off its late November peak of $8.40.

Meanwhile, the MANA token from Ethereum-based Decentraland has dropped 15% over the last 24 hours to a current price of $2.44. Like SAND, it’s still up significantly over the last three months, but has also fallen significantly from its all-time high of $5.85 in late November. It’s down 58% from then.

Gala Games’ GALA has suffered the largest percentage loss of any gaming token in the CoinGecko’s Top 100 (ranked by market cap), down almost 18% over the last 24 hours at a current price of just under $0.24. It has dropped 71% since peaking at $0.82 in November.

Enjin Coin (ENJIN) is down 16% today at $1.91—a fall of 60% from its November peak—while Axie Infinity’s AXS token is down 14% to $64. AXS is similarly down 60% from its own all-time high in early November, and Axie Infinity’s NFT trading volume has likewise fallen recently, dropping 60% from November to December per data from CryptoSlam.