Did you YOLO some cash into the cryptocurrency market on the advice of some celebrity or influencer? Bad news: That money is gone now. On Monday, the cryptocurrency market experienced one of its worst crashes yet, with Bitcoin and Ethereum slumping to their lowest prices in nearly two years. Major trading platforms have locked up, supposedly stable coins have destabilized, and it’s likely that the market has not yet found its bottom, meaning there is a lot more money to be lost.
Cryptocurrency as an asset class has been trending down for some time now. NFTs, once the belle of the ball, saw activity decreased by more than 90% from their peak. It turns out it may have been the canary in the coal mine for crypto as a whole. The next warning sign was Luna, the ninth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which crashed to zero and erased $45 billion in value last month. Now it’s the supposed “prime” cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, that are taking their turn in the barrel — and the experience has their investors over one.
