It is a bloody Wednesday for the entire cryptocurrency market as several top digital assets record double-digit losses.
The total market cap of the cryptocurrency lost more than $350 billion of its value overnight leading into Wednesday, May 19. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and several other top altcoins are sitting on losses between 15% and 30%.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the total market cap of the crypto industry was still above $2 trillion. However, the market dropped below the $2 trillion benchmark at about 2:20 am. The bloodbath continued until about 2:15 pm when the market dropped to $1.35 trillion, representing a loss of more than $600 billion.
As of press time, the market appears to be recovering, with the total market cap of the crypto industry now standing at approximately $1.7 trillion.
Looking at the specifics of the crash, Bitcoin lost over 15%, dropping from $45,632 to a 24-hour low of $30,681 in a matter of hours. This takes the coin’s weekly loss to over 30%. The last time Bitcoin recorded this level of crash was back in late 2017, a few days before the 2017 Bull Run came to a screeching halt.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, appears to be badly hit by the crash. ETH lost more than 24% on Wednesday, falling from $3,562 to $2,599. This brings its weekly losses to 36.55%.
Meanwhile, other altcoins, particularly recent top gainers, were not spared from the bloodbath. These digital assets were subject to even worse reversals. Internet Computer (ICP), for instance, lost more than 32% of its value in 24 hours. Its weekly losses are also over 61%. Musk’s meme Dogecoin lost over 26% in the past 24 hours, and its rival Shiba Inu recorded a 29% loss on the same day.
To buttress the intensity of the bloodbath, no cryptocurrency recorded a gain in the past 24 hours on CoinMarketCap’s top-100 list, with the except for stablecoins.
However, amid the market crash, Bitcoin inflows to major centralized exchanges have surged in the past 24 hours. More coins have been sent to trading posts, a sign that investors are either counting their losses or swapping their assets for stablecoins. Lex Moskovski, CIO at Moskovski Capital, believes that “people are scared.”