$500B plunge: Largest 3-day wipeout for crypto in a year

The crypto market has lost more than $300 billion from its total market capitalization in three days, and the sell-off can be traced back to a sudden stumble in the US stock market.
The crypto market has lost more than $300 billion from its total market capitalization in three days, and the sell-off can be traced back to a sudden stumble in the US stock market.

Update (1:55 am, Aug. 5): This article has been updated to include updated price figures for Bitcoin and Ether.

The crypto market has just clocked its most significant three-day sell-off in almost a year, shedding as much as $510 billion from its total market capitalization since Aug. 2.

The sharp crypto sell-off arrived amid faltering equities performance, with the S&P 500 falling as much as 4.4% in the same time frame.

The market stumble has been led by weak employment data, slowed growth among major tech stocks and revived fears of a recession.

Several major companies, including Microsoft and Intel, posted lower-than-expected second-quarter results, and market leader Nvidia was battered by expectations of impending rate cuts in September, which has seen capital flow back into smaller, lagging companies.

The total crypto market capitalization fell by $314 billion on Aug. 5. Source: TradingView

The last time crypto sold off this sharply over a three-day period was in mid-August of 2023.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) have also tumbled drastically amid a sudden market sell-off on Aug. 5, with the assets plummeting 10% and 18%, respectively, at the time of publication.

BTC and ETH are down 20% and 28%, respectively, in the last seven days. 

Layer-1 network Solana’s (SOL) has been the hardest-hit cryptocurrency among the top 10 largest tokens by market cap, falling 30.6% since July 30. 

Several market commentators have also looked to a spate of selling from Jump Crypto as an aggravating factor. The trading firm has offloaded hundreds of millions of dollars in assets from its books in the last several days, according to Arkham Intelligence data.

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The Crypto Fear & Greed Index — an indicator that tracks market sentiment toward Bitcoin and crypto — has fallen back into “fear” and currently displays a score of 26 at the time of publication, according to Alternative.me.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has fallen to its lowest level in 23 days. Source: Alternative.me

Moving forward, the crypto market is facing another tough week. Much of the weekend’s losses need to be bolstered by an uptick in spot and derivatives activity from traditional financial institutions.

“Bitcoin has entered the CME Gap, but technically, it can only be filled during TradFi trading hours,” Keith Alan, co-founder of trading resource Material Indicators, wrote in his latest X post on Aug. 4.

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