Why is Crypto Down Today?
2024-12-20
Category: None

The cryptocurrency market is down by over $200 billion in the last 24-hour period and by around $600 billion in the past week amid a significant downtrend that has been caused by several factors, including the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 25 basis points and its Chair Jerome Powell suggesting fewer cuts are coming next year.
Powell’s comments dampened investor sentiment and affected risk assets across markets, with the S&P 500 losing around 3.2% of its value since the comments were made and the Nasdaq seeing a similar dip. The market sell-off caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to continue its decline after experiencing nine straight losing sessions, marking its longest series of daily losses since 1974.
In the cryptocurrency space, the sell-off saw bitcoin’s price plunge by more than 9% to now trade below $93,000, while Ethereum’s ether dropped 15.6% to $3,120 at the time of writing. Major altcoins including Solana, DOGE, ADA, and BNB saw losses between 11.6% and 27%.
Crypto market cap chart via CoinMarketCap
The sell-off also saw spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds see a record $671 million outflow, its largest single-day loss, putting an end to a 15-day inflow streak these funds had been seeing. The largest outflow was seen on Fidelity’s FBTC, which saw $206.8 million pulled from the fund, while Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust experienced $188.6 million in outflows, and ARKB saw $108.4 million in outflows.
The market is also enduring a downturn over the expected release of the November Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, a key inflation measure expected to further influence future interest rate decisions.
Featured image via Pexels.