Bitcoin’s steady rise, which saw a few consecutive days of gains, came to a sudden halt on Friday following a significant hack of Bybit, leading to a price drop of over $4,000 in mere hours. This abrupt market shift also adversely affected altcoins, with notable losses recorded in assets like LTC, PEPE, AAVE, MNT, ONDO, APT, and TAO.
BTC Stopped at $100K
The premier cryptocurrency experienced heightened volatility at the start of the business week. On Monday, it fell to $95,300, and by Tuesday, it had further dipped to just over $93,000, marking its lowest point since the crash on February 3 when it fell below $92,000. However, bulls stepped in, halting the decline and pushing Bitcoin back up to approximately $96,000.
Subsequent days showed positive momentum with BTC climbing steadily. A significant spike occurred Friday after Coinbase’s CEO announced that the lawsuit against his company by the SEC would likely be dismissed. This news propelled Bitcoin to a multi-week peak of $99,700. Unfortunately, the $100,000 milestone eluded the cryptocurrency as news broke that Bybit, one of the largest trading platforms, had suffered a hack involving $1.4 billion worth of ETH. This event triggered a market-wide reaction, causing Bitcoin to plummet to $95,000 in just hours.
After some recovery, Bitcoin now hovers above $96,000, although it has experienced a nearly 2% decline over the past day. Its market capitalization remains slightly above $1.910 trillion while its dominance in the altcoin market is close to 58%.
Alts Retreat
Altcoins also faced substantial declines following the Bybit news and continue to struggle despite attempts at recovery. Ethereum has seen its price drop from $2,800 to roughly $2,700, while XRP has experienced a 3% slip. Additional altcoins like DOGE, ADA, TRX, LINK, XLM, LTC, and SUI have also reported declines of about 4-5%.
The cumulative market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, which had surged past $3.4 trillion, witnessed a substantial drop of approximately $130 billion, settling at around $3.3 trillion. This is still about $100 billion less than the market’s peak observed just a day earlier.
