After a few days in a holding pattern the crypto market has broken out during overnight trade. But unfortunately for traders it hasn't gone in the direction that they would have hoped.
Over the last 24 hours the value of the entire market has plunged lower by a sizeable 8.5% or approximately US$21 billion to be worth just US$218.9 billion this morning according to Coin Market Cap.
The catalyst for this selloff appears to have been reports suggesting that investment bank Goldman Sachs has postponed plans to open a trading desk for cryptocurrencies. Goldman has not confirmed the speculation, but if it is true it would be a bit of a blow to the market.
Crypto expert Brian Kelly told CNBC that: "They were not a part of the ecosystem yet, but to the extent that they represent the institutional herd, this is a negative."
And I agree. In my opinion, the only way Bitcoin and its peers are ever going to hit the lofty levels they reached at the start of the year will be if institutional money pours into the market. But this isn't looking likely to happen any time soon judging by this latest news and the rejection of several ETFs.
Here is the state of play on Thursday morning:
The Bitcoin (BTC) price has tumbled 5.5% over the last 24 hours to US$6,958.92 per coin, reducing its market capitalisation to US$120 billion.
The Ethereum (ETH) price has plunged 13.7% since this time yesterday to US$246.67 per token. This leaves ETH with a market capitalisation of US$25.1 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price has tumbled 10.4% over the period to 29.80 U.S. cents. The XRP market capitalisation now stands at US$11.8 billion.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price has sunk 13% lower over the last 24 hours to US$545.82, reducing the Bitcoin spin off's market capitalisation to just under US$9.5 billion.
The EOS (EOS) price has sunk 15.8% lower since this time yesterday to US$5.47, leaving EOS with a market capitalisation of US$4.9 billion.
Outside the top five the declines were just as severe, except for U.S. dollar-pegged Tether (USDT) which rose 0.1% in line with the greenback. It was one of just four coins in the top 100 in positive territory during the period.
Elsewhere in the top 10, Stellar (XLM) has fallen 8.3%, Litecoin (LTC) is down 10.9%, Cardano (ADA) is off 13.6%, and Monero (XMR) is 11.6% lower.
