After a couple of weeks of low volatility on crypto markets, volatility returned with a bang overnight and heavy declines are being seen across the board this morning.
This has led to the value of the entire crypto market falling 3.2% since this time yesterday to US$201.2 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
What happened?
Traders have been hitting the sell button in a hurry after Forbes reported that hackers had stolen 913 Bitcoins from a small Canadian cryptocurrency exchange.
According to Forbes, the MapleChange exchange attempted to reassure users that the US$6 million theft will be thoroughly investigated but warned that it would be unable to make refunds. It then deleted its social media accounts and took its website offline.
This news appears to have spooked traders and reminded them of the dangers involved in buying cryptocurrencies and how there's little that you can do if they are stolen from you.
How are coins performing now?
The crypto market is a sea of red on Tuesday morning with just two coins in the top 50 in positive territory compared to this time yesterday.
Here is the state of play at the time of writing compared to 24 hours ago:
The Bitcoin (BTC) price is down 2.3% to US$6,326.20 per coin, reducing the crypto giant's market capitalisation to US$109.75 billion.
The Ethereum (ETH) price has fallen 3.9% to US$196.39. This decline leaves Ethereum with a market capitalisation of US$20.2 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price has dropped 4.4% to 43.83 U.S. cents. This has reduced the XRP market capitalisation to US$17.6 billion.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price has tumbled 4.7% lower to US$416.65 per token. The Bitcoin Cash market capitalisation has fallen to just under US$7.3 billion following this decline.
The EOS (EOS) price is down 5.1% to US$5.13 per token, leaving EOS with a market capitalisation of US$4.65 billion.
Outside the top five the declines continued with Stellar (XLM) falling 3.9%, Litecoin (LTC) dropping 5%, Tether (USDT) sliding 0.2%, Cardano (ADA) tumbling 5.1%, and Monero (XMR) falling 2.2%.
