The cryptocurrency market is in the red once again with most coins sustaining significant losses in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin has failed to sustain its upside momentum from two weeks ago and is now going down rather steeply towards $6500.
Ethereum Classic which gained about 10% yesterday on the news that Robinhood had started supporting it has lost much of those gains to trade at $373 a unit, representing a decline of nearly 15%. Major altcoins have also taken a hit with losses of more than 10%. EOS is down 15% to trade at $6.02 while Ethereum has declined by 13% to trade at $373 on Bitfinex.
XRP is losing by similar margins having lost 15% in the last 24 hours to reach $0.34. IOTA which has also been on a losing streak since early this week has shed 13% with a unit going for $0.66.
Litecoin, the seventh largest crypto by market capitalisation is now trading at $65 having lost about 12%.
It is not quite clear what occasioned the price movement but it could be a continuation of a general downward trend that has been witnessed for much of this year.
Slight uptick
Hopes for some resurgence in prices were high two weeks ago after bitcoin hit a two-month high of $8400 buoyed by expectations of a bitcoin ETF. When the Securities and Exchange Commission declined the proposal submitted by the Winklevoss twins, the market started tanking again and is now nearly erasing all the gains made during that period.
The announcement by the Intercontinental Exchange, the company that owns the NYSE that it will launch physically delivered bitcoin contracts later in the year was not enough to excite the market this week.
This could be because the entry of institutional investors through the bitcoin futures contracts in late 2017 sent the market on a downward trend instead. It has been argued that the contracts provided an opportunity for pessimistic investors to short the market.
Total market capitalisation currently stands at $231 billion from $274 billion a week ago. That means the market has shed a total of $43 billion in just seven days.