Bitcoin Slumps Below $90K, Ethereum And XRP Slide As ‘Extreme Fear’ Grips Investors

Bitcoin plunged below $90K for the first time since April and Ethereum and XRP slid as “extreme fear” gripped the crypto market.

BTC is trading at $89,730.57 as of 3:12 a.m. EST after sliding more than 5% in the past 24 hours. It has now dropped more than 14% in the past week.

Other major cryptos also tumbled, with altcoin king ETH slumping 6%, causing it to slide below the psychological $3K level. XRP shed over 5%, edging it closer to the $2 mark.

Crypto Market Cap Nears $3 Trillion As Top 10 Bleed

Most of the rest of the top ten biggest cryptos by market cap also buckled under the wave of selling pressure. Cardano (ADA) lost 6%, BNB and Solana (SOL) tumbled more than 3%, while Tron (TRX) and meme coin leader Dogecoin (DOGE) fell 1% and 4%, respectively. 

Crypto’s overall market capitalization plunged 5% to $3.07 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap data.  

Crypto market cap continues to drop (Source: CoinMarketCap) 

“Extreme Fear” Reigns As Liquidations Top $1 Billion

Amid the market-wide pullback, investor sentiment turned even more bearish, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a popular tool to gauge market sentiment, falling three points to an “extreme fear” level of 11. It’s also lost 18 points in the past month. 

CoinGlass data shows liquidations topped $1.02 billion in the past day, with long positions accounting for $724.2 million. 

The ratio of short to long liquidations spiked in the past four hours, with $100.74 million wiped out from long positions and only $17.90 million liquidated from shorts during this period. 

Prior to the latest selloff, The Kobeissi Letter told its more than 1.1 million followers on X that the crypto market had suffered three days of more than $1 billion liquidations in just the past 16 days. 

It added that $500+ million liquidations had also become a “normal occurrence,” and blamed excessive levels of leverage. It said high leverage combined with thin volumes have been the reason for “violent crypto swings.”

Bitwise And BitMine Execs See A Bottom This Week

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan and BitMine Chairman Tom Lee say that the market could bottom this week. 

Speaking in an interview with CNBC yesterday, Lee said that crypto has been suffering since the Oct. 10 liquidation event, and added that traders are still unsure if there will be an interest rate cut in December.