Update (1:55 am, Aug. 5): This article has been updated to include updated price figures for Bitcoin and Ether.
The crypto market has just clocked its most significant three-day sell-off in almost a year, shedding as much as $510 billion from its total market capitalization since Aug. 2.
The sharp crypto sell-off arrived amid faltering equities performance, with the S&P 500 falling as much as 4.4% in the same time frame.
The market stumble has been led by weak employment data, slowed growth among major tech stocks and revived fears of a recession.
Several major companies, including Microsoft and Intel, posted lower-than-expected second-quarter results, and market leader Nvidia was battered by expectations of impending rate cuts in September, which has seen capital flow back into smaller, lagging companies.
The last time crypto sold off this sharply over a three-day period was in mid-August of 2023.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) have also tumbled drastically amid a sudden market sell-off on Aug. 5, with the assets plummeting 10% and 18%, respectively, at the time of publication.
BTC and ETH are down 20% and 28%, respectively, in the last seven days.
Layer-1 network Solana’s (SOL) has been the hardest-hit cryptocurrency among the top 10 largest tokens by market cap, falling 30.6% since July 30.
Mena Theodorou, the co-founder of Australian crypto exchange Coinstash told Cointelegraph that macroeconomic factors played a significant role in the recent sell-off.
“The broader sell-off of at-risk assets across capital markets was triggered by the Japanese central bank raising interest rates, as well as increased tensions in the Middle East,” Theodorou said.
“In this situation, as arguably the catalyst was due to an interest rate hike in Japan, Asian sentiments are as bearish as that of the United States. This can, in turn, create a cascading effect on the already downward trending momentum of crypto price movements.”
“There are also other crypto-specific reasons at play — namely the redemption of Bitcoin holdings by Mt Gox creditors, coupled with rumors of the US Government moving its own Bitcoin holdings,” he added.
Several market commentators have also looked to a spate of selling from Jump Crypto as an aggravating factor. The trading firm has offloaded hundreds of millions of dollars in assets from its books in the last several days, according to Arkham Intelligence data.
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The Crypto Fear & Greed Index — an indicator that tracks market sentiment toward Bitcoin and crypto — has fallen back into “fear” and currently displays a score of 26 at the time of publication, according to Alternative.me.
Moving forward, the crypto market is facing another tough week. Much of the weekend’s losses need to be bolstered by an uptick in spot and derivatives activity from traditional financial institutions.
“Bitcoin has entered the CME Gap, but technically, it can only be filled during TradFi trading hours,” Keith Alan, co-founder of trading resource Material Indicators, wrote in his latest X post on Aug. 4.
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