Just when the crypto market looked to have moved on from last week's meltdown, the selloff accelerated overnight and massive declines are being seen across the board this morning.
This latest selloff means that the market has lost 11% of its value since this time yesterday, leaving it with a combined market capitalisation of US$165.25 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
What happened?
Most analysts are blaming this latest selloff on technical analysis. When Bitcoin fell through the US$6,000 support level it was always going to be vulnerable to further declines.
Worryingly, now it has fallen through the US$5,000 mark it could be on the verge of even steeper declines.
As I mentioned here last week, Stephen Innes from Oanda Corp believed that if the Bitcoin price fell through that level it "opens the door to a test of US$2,500 as Bitcoin retail traders move from buying on dip to full-out panic mode."
If that happens then research by Bloomberg Intelligence could prove accurate. This weekend its analysts predicted that the Bitcoin price could fall to US$1,500.
And unfortunately for other coins, they tend to follow the lead of the crypto giant. Which could mean significant declines ahead for them as well.
For now, though, here is the state of play on the market compared to 24 hours ago:
The Bitcoin (BTC) price is down 11.2% to US$4,988.51 per coin. This decline reduces the world's largest cryptocurrency's market capitalisation to US$86.7 billion.
The Ripple (XRP) price has fallen 3% to 49.35 U.S. cents. This leaves XRP with a market capitalisation of US$19.9 billion.
The Ethereum (ETH) price has tumbled 13.2% to US$153.84 per token. This has reduced Ethereum's market capitalisation to US$15.9 billion.
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price has continued its decline and is down 10.75% to US$343.24 per token. This decline leaves the Bitcoin spin off with a market capitalisation of just under US$6 billion.
The Stellar (XLM) price has dropped 8.6% to 22.79 U.S. cents per token. This has reduced the XLM market capitalisation to US$4.4 billion.
Outside the top five the declines continued. The EOS (EOS) price is down 11.4%, Litecoin (LTC) has fallen 14.2%, Tether (USDT) us off 0.2%, Cardano (ADA) has tumbled 14.7%, and Monero (XMR) has crashed 17.8% lower.
