Crypto markets crash, BTC drops to below $9,000

After a relatively quiet day where the major cryptocurrencies had seen good gains and consolidation, a steep drop on Thursday afternoon saw the whole gamut of currencies go down by large margins. BTC was the prime mover behind this drop as it eventually fell to $9,100 from $9,400 and ceded the $9,000 mark during the Asian market round to settle at around $8,900, although further falls were expected.

Some very bad news for Dash caused a major freefall in the currency, which dropped to well below the $450 mark and was trading at around $414 at press time. The news was that CEO Ryan Taylor’s Twitter account was hacked by 4chan trolls, resulting in a major drop in the currency’s price.

Bitcoin Cash, which has risen by almost 200% over the past three weeks, was not immune to the crash ceding around 5% to settle at the $1,470 mark, although there appears to be good support at that level. Ethereum was perhaps the best performer of all top cryptocurrencies since it only descended by around 2% to trade at $730 at press time with good support at that level. On the other hand, its sister currency, Ethereum Classic, fell below the psychologically significant $20 mark and appeared to be quite weak in the light of reduced demand for the coin.

Ripple continued to decline and lost a further 5%, having lost well over 20% in the past week when it traded at a high of $0.90 only a few days ago. All the bad news and FUD have seriously affected the currency, and it was trading at just around $0.73 at press time with further falls expected.

Smaller market cap currencies had a disastrous few hours too with Stellar and NEO experiencing heavy drops. The former was trading at $0.33 at press time, almost 25% down from its monthly high, whilst NEO was down to $0.66 practically giving up all the gains it made over the past weeks. EOS was also down slightly holding the $17 mark quite well, whilst other currencies such as Cardano and IOTA saw considerable drops from their monthly highs. The next 24-28 hours will be significant for the cryptocurrency market if it is to hold on to the gains established over the past weeks or if it is to fall further and create panic amongst investors.