Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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Bitcoin is trading below $92k after losing nearly 4% of its value.
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Altcoins are in deep red, with Solana losing 12% in the last 24 hours as the market sell-off worsens.
BTC and Altcoins Underperform
The cryptocurrency market was a sea of red on Monday, with over $110 billion wiped out from the total cryptocurrency market cap. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market cap, lost 4% of its value in the last 24 hours and now trades at $91,822 per coin. This was the first time Bitcoin dropped below $92k since November 2024.
Altcoins sustained bigger losses, with Solana’s SOL the worst performer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. SOL is down 12% and now trades at $140 per coin. Dogecoin (DOGE) has lost 9% of its value, while Ether, XRP, and Cardano (ADA) are down 8% each. Binance’s native BNB coin lost 5% of its value and risks dropping below the $600 mark if the bearish sentiment continues.
Crypto traders lost $340 million on Monday due to the ongoing bearish conditions.
JUST IN: $340 million liquidated from the cryptocurrency market in the past 60 minutes.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) February 24, 2025
Despite the bearish market conditions, traders are optimistic things will turn around soon. While speaking to CoinDesk, Jeff Mei, COO at crypto exchange BTSE, said,
“Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana shouldn't be trading this far below their all time highs. On the U.S. side, inflation concerns and a pause in Fed rate cuts have kept markets down, but this could change as weak economic data released last week could spur Fed officials to take further action.”
Augustine Fan, head of insights at SignalPlus, added that,
“The 'slowdown' narrative will likely dominate the narrative in the near term, with stocks and bonds trading back in positive tandem with correlation nearing the highs of the past 12 months.”
The bearish performance comes despite Michael Saylor’s Strategy purchased 20,356 BTC for $1.99B or an average price of $97,514 per token. The purchase comes after last week's $2 billion 0% convertible note offering, which raised $1.99 billion after expenses.
With this latest acquisition, Strategy now holds 499,096 bitcoins acquired for $33.1 billion, or an average price of $66,357 each. At bitcoin's current price of $91,822, the holdings are worth about $45.8 billion.
