It certainly has been a horrendous day for cryptocurrency traders with a significant decline in the values of almost all crypto coins.
So much so the entire value of the crypto market has fallen 15% or US$56.2 billion since this time yesterday to US$316.2 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
While the bitcoin (BTC) price will take all the headlines with its 13.5% decline to US$7,947.96 per coin, it isn't by any means the worst performer among the major coins.
The cryptocurrency that takes that unwanted crown is Cardano (ADA). It has shed 22% of its value over the last 24 hours to 17.9 U.S. cents. This has reduced the popular altcoin's market capitalisation to US$4.6 billion.
It also means that Cardano has now plunged a whopping 86% since peaking as high as US$1.29 in January. At that point the altcoin had a market capitalisation of approximately US$33.35 billion.
Why has Cardano been crushed today?
As I explained earlier, the catalyst for the crypto sell off today has been news that search engine giant Google will ban all crypto advertising from June. This follows a similar move by Facebook in January.
This is expected to make it harder for cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges to attract new traders and could weigh heavily on sentiment and prices.
The declines have been heavier at the small side of the market today. Popular smaller coins such as Stellar Lumens (XLM), Dash (DASH) and NEM (XEM) have fallen heavily. The latter, for example, has lost 32% of its value since this time yesterday.
Traders appear to believe the coins at the smaller end of the market are likely to suffer most from Google's advertising ban.
Where next for Cardano?
While Cardano could rebound strongly if the crypto market finds support during European and U.S trade overnight, I feel an investment would be incredibly risky and think investors ought to stay clear of all cryptocurrencies at this point and focus on other investment opportunities.
