Crypto Markets Shed Over $100B as BTC Slumped to $95K (Weekend Watch)

Bitcoin’s gradual price increase that lasted a few consecutive days came to an abrupt end on Friday after Bybit suffered a major hack, and BTC tumbled by over four grand in hours.

The altcoins were also hit hard, and some of the biggest losers on a daily scale now include LTC, PEPE, AAVE, MNT, ONDO, APT, and TAO.

BTC Stopped at $100K

The primary cryptocurrency faced some enhanced volatility at the start of the business week as the bears drove it south on Monday to $95,300 and on Tuesday to just over $93,000. The latter became BTC’s lowest price position since the February 3 crash when it tumbled beneath $92,000.

However, the bulls managed to intervene at this point and didn’t allow another breakdown. Just the opposite, bitcoin started to recover and went back up to $96,000 almost immediately.

The following few days were quite positive as well, and BTC kept climbing. The culmination came on Friday after Coinbase’s CEO said the lawsuit between his company and the SEC would be dismissed by the regulator, and bitcoin jumped to a multi-week peak of $99,700.

However, its $100,000 challenge failed shortly after as Bybit, one of the largest exchanges by trading volume, was hacked for a whopping $1.4 billion in ETH. The news impacted the entire market and BTC dumped to $95,000 within hours.

It has recovered some ground now and sits above $96,000, but it’s still almost 2% down on a daily scale. Its market cap remains inches above $1.910 trillion, while its dominance over the alts on CG is close to 58%.

Alts Retreat

The altcoins also went south after the Bybit news broke and are still in the red on a 24-hour scale despite some recoveries. ETH was stopped at $2,800 and is down to $2,700 now; XRP has slipped by 3%, while DOGE, ADA, TRX, LINK, XLM, LTC, and SUI have plunged by 4-5%.

The cumulative market capitalization of all crypto assets had climbed to over $3.4 trillion yesterday but dropped by around $130 billion to its low. Now, it sits at $3.3 trillion, which is still around $100 billion less than yesterday’s peak.