Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
Little over a week since the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF), and the crypto markets are suffering.
Over the past week, Bitcoin (BTC) has shed more than 10% of its value, according to CoinGecko. The biggest digital coin by market cap is now priced at $41,002.
Last week, it was closing in on $49,000.
The long-awaited Bitcoin ETFs have been a roaring success—with BlackRock’s iShares ETF collecting over $1 billion in assets under management.
So, why the dip in price? It probably has something to do with investors cashing out their gains from the initial ETF hype.
Some analysts said that ETF approval had already been “priced in.” This likely means that traders and investors were unlikely to continue buying after the approval was made official.
The rest of the crypto market has been hit hard over the past week, too. Solana (SOL) has shed over 7% of its value in the past week and is priced at $92.38.
While Avalanche (AVAX) is down by more than 14%, trading hands for $32.82. Both assets had done very well in December as they attracted institutional investor interest.
Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH), the second-biggest digital coin, has lost 8% of its value in the past week. It’s now priced at $2,466.
Following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of 10 spot BTC ETFs, the crypto sphere is now awaiting spot ETH ETFs to drop.
Wall Street’s top regulator on Thursday pushed back its deadline for a decision on Fidelity’s proposed spot Ethereum ETF to March 5, leading to a price dip in the asset.
The entire crypto market now stands at $1.7 trillion, having dropped by 2.8% in the last 24 hours.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/213494/this-week-in-coins-despite-etf-hype-bitcoin-and-ethereum-plunge-hard
