March 30: the crypto markets have taken a large hit this week, with Bitcoin (BTC) dipping below $7,000, Ethereum (ETH) below $400, and total market cap around $269 bln, according to data from Coin360.

COIN360

BTC is currently trading at around $7,066, down a little more than 5 percent over a 24 hour period. Although BTC is now back over the $7,000 threshold, it is still down around 65 percent since its December high of $20,000.

Chart

ETH is currently trading around $400, alternating between going above and below the psychological threshold. Overall, it is down around 3 percent over a 24 hour period.

Chart

Ripple (XRP) is also down about 4 percent over a 24 hour period, trading at around $0.52 by press time. Ripple’s price drops come even during a week when the company made news for donating $29 mln in XRP to support US public schools.

Ripple Chart

Of the top five coins listed on CoinMarketCap, only Litecoin (LTC) is in the green, up a little more than 1 percent over a 24 hour period, currrently trading for around $122.

Litecoin Chart

The overall market slump could be attribued to both Twitter’s recent announcment that would ban crypto-related ads, following on the heels of similar announcements from Google and Facebook, or Mailchimp’s apparent closure of crypto-related accounts.

In response to the social media ad bans, crypto and Blockchain associations in Russia, South Korea, and China have created a joint assocation in order to sue the social media giants, including Yandex, referring to the bans as “market manipulation” by “monolopies.”

Regulatory crackdowns on crypto could also be compounding the market’s downward trend, as two Japanese exhanges this week have decided to close instead of working with regulators for compliance.