Unfortunately for cryptocurrency traders the crypto market has continued its poor run in Asian trade.
At the time of writing there is a sea of red amongst the major coins and the entire value of the market has fallen to US$365 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
This is a decline of 6% since this time yesterday and 2.5% since this morning's update.
Surprisingly, despite there being sizeable declines across the board, there doesn't appear to be a single driver for the selloff.
However, I suspect one cause could have been traders becoming underwhelmed with the market's reaction to the high-profile Consensus 2018 Blockchain Week event in New York.
This event had been tipped as a major catalyst to taking the market higher, but with that not eventuating, traders could be closing positions following the end of the event on Thursday.
In addition to this, reports in the Independent about the energy requirements of the Bitcoin network could have concerned traders.
It has been estimated by Digiconomist that Bitcoin mining accounts for 0.5% of the world's energy consumption. This is the equivalent of the same amount of energy used by Austria.
This may have some traders fearing that restrictions could be placed on Bitcoin mining in the future by governments.
Here is the state of play over the last 24 hours on Friday afternoon:
The Bitcoin (BTC) price is down 4.4% to US$8,027.23, reducing its market capitalisation to US$137.8 billion.
The Ethereum (ETH) price is down 5.7% to US$673.30, leaving it with a market capitalisation of US$67 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price is off 6% to 66.5 U.S. cents. XRP now has a market capitalisation of just over US$26 billion.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price is the worst performing major coin with a 9.7% decline to US$1,189.15. This reduces BCH's market capitalisation to under US$20.4 billion.
The EOS (EOS) price is down 8% to US$12.50, leaving it with a market capitalisation of US$10.8 billion.
Fellow altcoins Litecoin (LTC), Cardano (ADA), Stellar (XLM), IOTA (MIOTA), and TRON (TRX) are all being smashed this afternoon as well. These five coins are down no less than 6% over the last 24 hours. IOTA has been the worst performer with an 11% decline.
