Crypto prices are in free fall at a level not seen since 2022, when the collapse of major companies like FTX and Terraform Labs put the entire industry in peril. This time around, as leading digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum have fallen as much as 25% in just a day, the reasons for the plunge are more complicated.
While blockchain acolytes have long argued that cryptocurrencies offer a hedge to traditional financial assets, the drop in prices has mirrored a broader selloff across the stock market triggered by a disappointing jobs report and slow action by the Federal Reserve. With Bitcoin hovering around $50,000—a price it hasn’t hit since February, after spending most of July above $65,000—the turmoil could just be getting started.
Crypto prices drop
On Sunday and early Monday, Bitcoin prices dipped below $50,000—an important psychological metric for investor confidence in the broader crypto market, and a more than 20% drop from the previous week. Meanwhile, other tokens like Ethereum and Solana posted a seven-day drop of over 30%. By midday Monday, crypto prices had made a modest comeback as Bitcoin traded around $53,000.
The crypto crash coincided with broader setbacks for the U.S. economy. After humming along for much of July, the stock market fell last week on the heels of new data from the U.S. Labor Department that found that hiring had slowed while the unemployment rate missed expectations, rising to its highest level in nearly three years. The Dow Jones Industry Average fell more than 600 points, with traders dismayed by the Federal Reserve's decision in July to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged. Even with a long-anticipated cut likely coming in September, fears are growing on Wall Street that action will come too late.
Despite recent bullish news for the crypto sector, including the July launch of Ethereum ETFs in the U.S., digital assets fell alongside the stock market, with the total crypto market cap dropping from over $2.5 trillion on July 28 to around $1.9 trillion at the time of publication, reflecting the worst loss since 2022. According to the blockchain financial services firm CoinShares, digital asset investment products saw outflows for the first time in four weeks totaling over $500 million.
A report from Wintermute, a leading crypto market maker, on Monday described the crypto plunge precipitated by the jobs report as "unexpected," finding that more than $1 billion in digital asset positions had been liquidated overnight, alongside a $57 billion drop in the market cap for altcoins.
While macro conditions are the major driver behind the collapse, Wintermute pointed to other factors, including a recent selloff from Jump Trading, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm that had become a central player in the crypto industry over the past decade before retreating from the sector amid a series of collapses and regulatory scrutiny. On-chain data showed that Jump moved $47 million worth of Ethereum onto centralized exchanges, although Wintermute's analysis cautioned that ascribing broader market movement to Jump is a "stretched narrative putting a story to price action."
According to the firm, volatility is increasing as traders seek to hedge the uncertainty, with the price of options contracts increasing and trading volume focused on large-cap assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.
Learn more about all things crypto with short, easy-to-read lesson cards. Click here for Fortune's Crypto Crash Course.
