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Mooners and Shakers: Crypto carnage as Bitcoin slides to 10-month low

The cryptocurrency market has been savaged, with Bitcoin sinking to a 10-month low and altcoins taking a beating. Here’s the lay of the land.

Rob BadmanMooners and Shakers
Not sure what they're watching, but it's unlikely to be as scary as the crypto crash. Picture: Getty Images.
Not sure what they're watching, but it's unlikely to be as scary as the crypto crash. Picture: Getty Images.
3 min read
7:48AMMay 10, 2022.
Updated 8:23AMMay 10, 2022
Stockhead

Having fun yet? Billions of dollars continue to pour from the crypto market in one of the biggest routs it’s seen in quite some time.

Both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are now down more than 50 per cent from their respective all-time highs, as dog coins, DeFi protocols, NFTs and more take a worse beating across the board.

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Which is normal to see in crypto market sell-offs.

Painful for altcoin bag hodlers, but normal.

Now, is there anything happening this week that could either swing things even more violently downwards … OR throw a hail Mary touchdown pass to the bulls?

Well there is the latest US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data due to be released midweek. This could be one to watch. Someone looks like they’re desperate to chat about it …

As Kiwi/American crypto analyst Lark Davis points out, anything lower than the previous US inflation data level (March: 7.9% YoY) and it could give the markets a relieving turnaround.

But anything higher than that … best tense the gut for a few more body blows yet.

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at roughly US$1.58 trillion, down about 5.5% in the past day, CoinGecko showed a grim state of play among top 10 tokens – Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, XRP, Solana, Caardano, Terra and TerraUSD all down, many of them heavily, with Tether and USD Coin making tiny gains.

After a torrid weekend for crypto following the US Fed’s 0.5% interest rate hike, Bitcoin has now plummeted to its lowest level since last July, when it broke just below US$30k for a day.

Can it hold US$32k? It’s currently not looking too hopeful.

Likewise, Ethereum is also the lowest it’s been in about that 10-month timeframe, breaking down below US$2,400 just now.

It’s a fairly typical crypto market sell-off picture – generally the altcoins tend to take a harder pounding.

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Bitcoin is in a class of its own, and to a degree, so is Ethereum.

The question is, where will the bleeding stop?

Maybe the Crypto Fear & Greed Index – which sits at 11 in the “Extreme Fear” region, holds some clues? Hard to tell – it’s been shivering and shaking in a corner for a while now.

But looking back to a more “extreme” moment than this one, the sentiment index hit a low of 7 around the time of the 2020 BTC Covid crash.

A few months later, so began one of the biggest bullruns the space has seen.

Not saying that’s going to happen again this time around, but things have been known to get their darkest right before the dawn.

At the moment, though, it’s a dip of the lid to all the bearish analysts who’ve been predicting this dump for a while. For example …

Still, a few lone bulls can still be spotted in the wild … Here comes one now …

(His words … not ours.)

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$17.2 billion to about US$775 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time.

DAILY PUMPERS (and remarkably there are a couple)

• Waves (WAVES), (market cap: US$1.44 billion) 9%

• Zilliqa (ZIL), (mc: US$7.44 billion) +4%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Polkadot (DOT), (mc: US$12.76 billion) -15%

• Algorand (ALGO), (mc: US$4.4b) -15%

• Shiba Inu (SHIB), (mc: US$8.87bn) -15%

• THORChain (RUNE), (mc: US$1.53b) -14%

• Tezos (XTZ), (mc: US$2b) -14%

• ApeCoin (APE), (mc: US$2.9b) -13%

• Synthetix (SNX), (mc: US$831 million) -13%

• Aave (AAVE), (mc: US$1.55b) -13%

Uppers and downers: lower caps

Moving below the crypto unicorns (in some cases well below), here’s just a selection catching our eye …

DAILY PUMPERS

• Ampleforth Governance Token (FORTH), (market cap: US$51 million) +38%

• Market Making Pro (MMPRO), (mc: US$34m) +14%

• Kujira (KUJI), (mc: US$41m) +12%

• Flex Coin (FLEX), (mc: US$325m) +8%

• Cult DAO (CULT), (mc: US$87m) +7%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Step App (FITFI), (mc: US$109m) -30%

• LooksRare (LOOKS), (mc: US$248m) -22%

• MXC (MXC), (mc: US$204m) -19%

• Quantstamp (QSP), (mc: US$33m) -18%

• Anchor Protocol (ANC), (mc: US$459m) -17%

Around the blocks

Heavily correlated to Bitcoin, the MSTR tech stock is down more than 22% over the past 24 hours. And it seems the Microstrategy boss is embracing the idea of going back to work with a former employer of his. (A joke, of course, but he apparently did once work there.)

Meanwhile, here are a few varied takes on the day’s action …

This content first appeared on stockhead.com.au

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/stockhead/mooners-and-shakers-crypto-carnage-as-bitcoin-slides-to-10month-low/news-story/9c0e1b54a9372a2ad7416eff8abf693f