Central issues :
- Ethereum holders are being liquidated fast, causing prices to crash.
- Investors are worried about the economy as well as the new covid-19 variant "omicron" sweeps across the world.
What occurred ?
The weekend continues to be a rough time for cryptocurrency holders. The stock market closes on Saturday and Sunday, but digital assets trade 24 hours, 7 days a week and Saturday has repeatedly been a down day for the cryptocurrency market over the past month.
There were drops across the cryptocurrency industry today but a few were more notable than others. Ethereum (ETH) continues its slide, falling 5.1% in the last 24 hours as of 4:20 p.m. ET. The value of Ethereum has fallen 17% in the past week and 31% over the past 30 days, hitting the dreaded $3,000 price in afternoon trading today before recovering slightly.
Cardano (ADA) fell 5.5% over the last 24 hours, Shiba Inu (SHIB) is down 5.9%, and Cosmos (ATOM) is down 13.7%. These are all known as altcoins and are typically more volatile than their larger crypto rivals, but these are big drops no matter how you look at it.
Now what ?
Volatility is common in cryptocurrencies but for most of the last two years, the trend in prices was going up. Now, we're seeing volatility work against investors and prices are falling quickly.
The drop may last for a while as speculators and leveraged traders are pushed out of the market. But there are hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in building real utility for cryptocurrencies whether that's in finance, fashion, payments, or other areas, and long-term that's why I'm bullish on the industry. That said, it's going to be a bumpy ride and I'm prepared for prices to drop further before they get better.