Altcoins
Ethereum Leads Altcoin Weekly Losses as Broader Market Selloff Continues
Last Updated: January 26, 2024 7:38 AM EST | 2 minutes of reading
The crypto market remains in the red zone, with altcoins and pack leader Ethereum (ETH) posting losses two weeks after the Bitcoin (BTC) spot ETF was approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SECOND).
On chain data shows price of several crypto assets trading at monthly lows. This contrasts with the rise in prices towards the end of last year.
The recent sell-off can be seen in Bitcoin and a large number of altcoins as daily cryptocurrency trading volumes plunge.
Over the past 24 hours, daily trading volumes amounted to $46.27 billion, a decrease of 6.61% from the previous day. This brings the total crypto market cap to $1.56 trillion.
With falling asset prices, decentralized finance (Challenge) volumes also fell and remain at $3.6 billion. With 7% of the entire crypto market, this shows reduced activity and heavy selling.
Ethereum leads the pack
Ethereum recorded the biggest loss among altcoins among the top 20 ranked assets over the past seven days, falling by double digits.
ETH is down 10.7% in a week at the time of writing and is trading at $2,212, a slight decline of 0.4% in the last 24 hours.
Like most assets, Ethereum gained momentum in the fourth quarter of 2023 after a slow start to the year following the 2022 bear market. The altcoin giant posted 90% profits throughout the year , which generated impressive institutional inflows and DeFi numbers.
However, the gains recorded in December have been erased by the recent market correction. Bears are currently forecasting a slight price decline in the coming weeks. Solana (GROUND) and ripple (XRP) posted losses of 6.69% and 6.4% over the past week to trade at $87.83 and $0.51, respectively.
Like ETH, the massive gains recorded by SOL in December were wiped out as the asset posted a monthly decline of 23.22%. XRP’s monthly losses are 17.63%. Cardano (ADA) and Avalanche (AVAX) have plunged 5.54% and 7.5% respectively over the past week, with larger drops of 22% and 15.29% over the past 30 days.
Bitcoin is still in the sales mix
Altcoin market remaining in red zone, Bitcoin correction after approval of spot ETFs garnered opinions from several commenters, with some saying it was simply an information-selling event.
The months preceding the approval were marked by a renewed appetite from institutional investors, the price of the asset reached levels haven’t seen him for months.
This was followed by analysts’ predictions of a massive price rise after the approval, as this became a new window for investors to increase their exposure to major assets.
Matrix port projected price of $50,000 for the asset in December and with the recent price correction, a new report was released on a potential price decline to $36,739 before a rebound.