The Bitcoin price has fallen below $50,000 for the first time since February, hitting a low of $49,351 before bouncing back toward the $51,000 mark.
As BTC dominance hits 58% amid a collapse in both the altcoin and stock markets, over 17% of the cryptocurrency total market capitalization has been wiped out.
According to CoinMarketCap, the crypto market’s total market cap was roughly $2.16 trillion but fell to a low of around $1.76 trillion on Aug. 5.
Related: Bitcoin dominance hits 58% amid altcoin, stock market bloodbath
Over $600 million in leveraged positions liquidated
In the early hours of Aug. 5, the start of the Bitcoin (BTC) price decline resulted in $600 million of leveraged long positions taken by traders being wiped out.
This market crash also saw Ether (ETH) plummet, losing almost 20% of its value in just two hours.
At the time of writing, the price of ETH was roughly $2,200 after recovering from a low of $2,172 at 7:25 am UTC on Aug. 5.
Related: Bitcoin crashes below $53K wiping out $600M in leveraged longs
Largest three-day crypto wipeout in a year
Since Aug. 2, the market has recorded its most significant sell-off in three days in almost a year, losing over $500 billion as S&P 500 equities performance fell over 4% in the same period.
With revived fears of a recession, poor employment data in the United States, and sluggish growth among leading tech stocks, the market collapse could just be getting started.
Unlike the week of July 29, when the Crypto Fear & Greed Index saw a value of 67 — categorized as “Greed” — the current value of 26 is deep in “Fear” territory.
Related: $500B plunge: Largest 3-day wipeout for crypto in a year
Bitcoin layer-2 sustainability issues
On Aug. 2, Galaxy Research released a report suggesting that most Bitcoin layer-2 scaling networks may not be sustainable in the long term.
Despite the popularity of Bitcoi L2 networks, Galaxy analyst Gabe Parker highlighted that costs associated, particularly “rollups,” could pose challenges in the future.
Parker detailed that Bitcoin rollups must generate enough revenue from transaction fees on their networks from users willing to pay for L2 network fees to survive and excel in the future.
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