Cryptocurrencies are swimming in a sea of red as the market downturn continues.
For the first time since January 2021, the global cryptocurrency market cap fell below $1 trillion on Monday morning, according to CoinMarketCap. The overall cryptocurrency market is down about 13% in 24 hours amid the carnage following Friday’s release of yet more red-hot inflation data.
Bitcoin is trading below $24,000, a 65% decline from its all-time high of $69,000 in November. The largest cryptocurrency by market value has tanked for nearly 12 weeks straight, a substantial downturn in the asset’s history. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, is trading below $1,300 at around $1,235, a decline of 74% from its all-time high of $4,878.
Neither Bitcoin nor Ether has seen such levels since December 2020.
Altcoins are also plunging. Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and Avalanche (AVAX), for example, are down 20%, 30%, and 37%, respectively, in the last seven days.
The wider cryptocurrency market began to fall after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released monthly inflation data from the consumer price index (CPI) on Friday morning, showing an 8.6% year-over-year increase in May. That was higher than Wall Street consensus estimates and set a new peak for the emerging era of high inflation in the 2020s (the previous peak was 8.5%).
Investors’ sentiment is now “extreme fear,” according to the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, as Celsius, a cryptocurrency lending platform, paused all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts on Sunday. Celsius’ token, CEL, tanked 50% following the news.
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