The cryptocurrency market went through one of the largest crashes in years but managed to chart an impressive recovery as well.
This week saw one of the most dramatic crashes in the cryptocurrency market—one that we hadn’t seen since the collapse of FTX in November 2022. What is even more interesting was the epic recovery of the majority of coins in the following days. Ultimately, the market ended up losing some $70 billion of its total capitalization, but it could have been much, much worse.
Starting with Bitcoin, in the early days of this week, its price nosedived below $50K, losing more than 20% in just two days. The move started on a Sunday when the liquidity in the market is traditionally thinner, and it’s a lot easier to impact pricing. On-chain data showed that one of the most active sellers was Jump Crypto – the cryptocurrency arm of Jump Trading – one of the leading market makers and a huge trading firm. The reasons behind their decision to sell remain speculative and unconfirmed.
Elsewhere, most of the altcoins took a massive beating, with Ethereum even plunging below $2.2K. This was the sentiment across most of the coins without any notable exceptions.
And then, things took an unexpected twist.
The market bounced… a lot. Bitcoin’s price is currently trading above $60K, while ETH is testing the $2.6K level. Moreover, most of the altcoins also managed to chart impressive V-shaped recoveries.
That said, a major development took place within the lawsuit between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple. Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the company should pay $125M in fine to the Commission, reaffirming her decision from last year that programmatic sales of XRP on centralized exchanges are not an investment contract.
This was interpreted as a win for XRP, which soared by 20% immediately after the news broke out. And while $125M is certainly a lot of money, it’s still a far cry from what the SEC had previously demanded (more than $1 billion).
All in all, the week turned out to be incredibly interesting, and there’s no telling if the market volatility won’t return in full force in the next few days!
