Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
The cryptocurrency market suddenly turned bearish over the weekend, with price drops Sunday among the top 10 coins ranging from 6% to 16%. Overall, the total market capitalization of more than 1,600 currencies tracked by Coinmarketcap.com stood at $296.3 billion Monday morning, compared to $339.4 billion around noon on Saturday, a loss of nearly 13%.
Some sources attributed the swoon to an announcement on Sunday by Coinrail, a South Korean exchange, that hackers had penetrated its platform. Others said the hack likely had little to do with Sunday’s sharp slide, instead citing an inevitable breakout from a relatively prolonged period of stability.
Drops among some of the biggest and best-known cryptocurrencies were dramatic enough to shed much or all of the value gained over the past two months. Bitcoin stood at just over $6,700 at mid-morning Monday, its lowest level since early April. The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap has now lost more than $3,000 in value since peaking near $10,000 on May 5.
Ripple, ranked third by market cap, entered the weekend trading around 67 cents but lost about a dime off that value on Sunday. Least impacted in percentage terms is No. 8 Litecoin, which saw its value fall about $10 to $105 by Monday morning. Litecoin, a Bitcoin derivative, is often cited as having perhaps the most potential to be adopted by users and merchants for payments because its transactions are faster and cheaper than those using Bitcoin.
