At the start of the year the crypto market became a bit of a safe haven during market volatility and was being referred to as the new gold.
Unfortunately, this hasn't proven to be the case today and cryptocurrencies have followed global share markets lower over the last 24 hours.
This has led to the value of the entire crypto market falling 1% over the period to US$217.4 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
What happened?
Cryptocurrencies have been struggling over the last couple of days after the International Monetary Fund criticised them in its latest World Outlook Report.
It stated that: "Cybersecurity breaches and cyber-attacks on critical financial infrastructure represent an additional source of risk because they could undermine cross-border payment systems and disrupt the flow of goods and services. Continued rapid growth of crypto assets could create new vulnerabilities in the international financial system."
However, it may not be all doom and gloom for crypto traders. Naeem Aslam from Forbes believes that news that the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission has invited the public to share their views on Bitcoin ETFs could be a positive.
In a Forbes article Aslam said: "It shows that the department remains open to the public opinion and most importantly wants to gauge the landscape. If the public shows support towards an ETF, it is highly likely that the department will accept an actual application which satisfies their criteria."
An ETF launch is expected to be the catalyst for a rally in the Bitcoin price due to the potential inflows of institutional money that it could bring.
In the meantime, here is the state of play on Thursday morning compared to 24 hours ago:
The Bitcoin (BTC) price has fallen 0.8% to US$6,578.32. This decline leaves Bitcoin with a market capitalisation of US$113.9 billion.
The Ethereum (ETH) price is down 1.1% to US$225.03, reducing its market capitalisation to just under US$23.1 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price has fallen 3% to 46.34 U.S. cents. This leaves XRP with a market capitalisation of US$18.5 billion.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price is down 0.6% to US$512.09, reducing the Bitcoin spin off's market capitalisation to US$8.9 billion.
The EOS (EOS) price has fallen 0.4% to US$5.87. This latest decline means EOS now has a market capitalisation of US$5.3 billion.
Outside the top five the Stellar (XLM) price fell 2.1%, Litecoin (LTC) dropped 0.8%, Tether (USDT) was down 0.1%, Cardano (ADA) tumbled 1.9%, and Monero (XMR) fell 0.3%.
