The new week did not give Bitcoin and altcoins a warm welcome. After falling below $6,000 last Wednesday and struggling to regain ground ever since, the market took another step backwards on Monday, raising concern among investors and the industry as a whole.
Bitcoin dropped below the $5,000 mark for the first time in more than a year; thirteen (13) months to be precise. According to data managed by the specialized site CoinDesk, the world’s premier digital asset reached $4,981 after 16:30 UTC on Monday, November 19th, continuing a steep decline phase that has been taking place for five days now.
Steady Decline and Market Concerns
The $4,981 figure represents an over $500 decline in the last 24 hours. It is the lowest number attached to Bitcoin (BTC) value since October 12th, 2017. At the time of writing this piece, the value had somewhat recovered to surpass the $5,000 threshold and reach $5,048, which would be 9 percent decline in the last day.
The industry seems to be entering a new level of collapse, as its total market capitalization fell another $15 billion in the last day. Investors are growing rapidly concerning, with some of them getting rid of their crypto assets in a hurry: The continued recent price drop has brought the total value of all Bitcoin in circulation to less than $87 billion.
Altcoins are not Faring Any Better
Many people talk and focus on Bitcoin’s recent struggles, but reality indicates that altcoins (other cryptocurrencies not named BTC) are not really faring any better than their so-called “father.” In fact, most of them are in red on Monday.
Ethereum (ETH) has been one of the most affected cryptocurrencies since the bloodbath that last Wednesday left behind. At the time of this writing, each ETH token was worth $153, a 14.81 percent drop in the last 24 hours.
ETH has a mountain to climb back to what it was trading at less than a week ago. Before Wednesday, each ETH was hovering between $200 and $210, and now it is struggling to keep itself above $150. It started the day in the $180 range, but it keeps losing ground and its future is bleak, at best. Ethereum, in January, was worth more than $600, and Bitcoin nearly reached $20,000.
Red Numbers all over the Place
Other prominent altcoins in the top 20 according to their market cap are in red. Such it is the case of Litecoin (LTC) and EOS, with 24-hour losses of at least 10 percent. Only Ripple could somewhat keep its price, and it still lost 3.14 percent of value. Coins such as LBRY Credits, ZClassic, Tezos, and Aragon lost more than 20 percent in what is shaping to be a nightmarish end of the year for cryptocurrencies.
Experts seem to agree on the notion that the main culprit of the industry-wide collapse has been the hard fork of Bitcoin Cash and the “hash war” between Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC, the two resulting blockchains of the division.
By Andres Chavez
