The cryptocurrency market took a huge hit nearly 12 hours ago when Bitcoin (BTC) abruptly dropped over $200 in value within minutes. After BTC dropped, a widespread cryptocurrency sell-off took place and hasn’t slowed down since.
Cryptocurrency Sell-Off
According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $6,264.43 a coin, down -4.63%. Most of the cryptocurrency market has followed Bitcoin’s spiral, and most coins in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by their total market cap are seeing double-digit percentage losses.
Ethereum (ETH) is currently trading at $201.10 a coin, down -11.07% in 24 hours, and XRP is now valued at $0.405 a coin, down -13.33%. The total cryptocurrency market cap has fallen by $19 billion in the past 24 hours. Since January, $600 billion has been wiped in value from the market.
Why the Crypto Sell-Off?
There are many speculations as to why Bitcoin tanked. One investor tweeted:
It is plausible that investors and traders in Asia have contributed quite largely to the drop in the price of Bitcoin today.
The volume of crypto exchanges in South Korea and Japan (Bithumb, Bitflyer) are huge. https://t.co/1nAHd9BezV[1]
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) October 11, 2018[2]
The tweet still doesn’t explain why there was a sell-off, but it may show where it predominantly came from.
“The global sell-off in equities has indeed spilled over to the crypto space,” Ryan Rabaglia, head of trading with cryptocurrency dealing firm OSL in Hong Kong, told Fortune. “The days of crypto being the safe-haven play and having a high degree of detachment from the rest of the world are seemingly diminishing.”[3]
Rabaglia seems to think that the global sell-off of equities has spilled over
