The cryptocurrency market lost $ 500 billion in just five days

Bitcoin BTC $78,794.48 Mezo Wrapped BTC 1.89% Market capitalization $44.89 million VOL. 24 hours $3.55 billion suffered its deepest drop in almost a year, falling below $ 76,000. Ethereum ETH $2,372.29 Bridged Ether (StarkGate) 2.48% Market capitalization $54.29 million VOL. 24 hours $3.5 billion also declined, with its rate falling below $ 2,200. Just a few days ago, Bitcoin was trading above $ 90,000, but it did not hold this level after the US Federal Reserve meeting, which ended without the expected rate cut. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have become an additional pressure factor.

Over the past week, the BTC rate has dropped by more than $ 15,000. After a brief recovery to $ 84,000 on Friday, it fell below $ 76,000 on Saturday, and on Monday morning, the Bitstamp exchange recorded a new drop to $ 74,400. In just a day and a half, Bitcoin lost about $ 10,000.

The fall of the flagship crypto market has also dragged down altcoins. The total market capitalization has fallen by $ 300 billion since Saturday and by $ 500 billion since Wednesday. Over the weekend, more than $ 2.5 billion of highly leveraged positions were liquidated, and another $ 800 million — mostly long positions — were liquidated in the last 24 hours.

Similar processes took place in the precious metals market. The price of silver fell from over $ 121 to $ 72 on Friday and $ 70.5 today. Gold fell from $ 5,600 to $ 4,400. In total, about $ 10 trillion in capitalization has disappeared from the gold and silver markets in a few days.

Despite the sharp decline, the cryptocurrency sector remains in its infancy. Even after the fall, gold’s capitalization exceeds the crypto market by more than ten times, and the silver market is larger than Bitcoin and all altcoins combined. This confirms that the statement «we're still in the beginning» remains true for the digital asset industry.