Crypto markets tumbled into a sea of red on Monday, with some altcoins bleeding more than 10%, though an industry analyst tells Cointelegraph there’s “no clear catalyst” to explain why.
Crypto’s market cap has fallen to $2.46 trillion, down 3.5% over the last 24 hours. Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Avalanche (AVAX) have been the hardest hit altcoins among the top 20 by market cap on June 17, falling 12.7% and 10.6% over the day, CoinGecko data shows.
Uniswap (UNI) and Dogecoin (DOGE) also saw a double-digit drop, while Solana (SOL) dipped 9.4%. Ripple’s XRP (XRP) was the only non-stablecoin not in the red, though it only saw a minor 0.1% increase.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) have seen falls at 1.3% and 4.4%, respectively over the past 24 hours.
Henrik Anderrson, chief investment officer at asset manager Apollo Crypto, said he couldn’t pinpoint the main cause of the market fall — but believes reduced interest in the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds as of late may be a contributing factor.
“[There’s] no clear catalyst from what I can see, but looks like negative BTC ETF flows led to weakness in alts which triggered liquidations of leverage long traders in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin,” Andersson told Cointelegraph.
The spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen outflows on five of the last six trading days, according to data from Farside Investors.
Digital asset firm 10xResearch also tied the recent altcoin crash to the fall in spot Bitcoin ETF flows over the last week — but thinks the relationship is the other way around.
“It has come as a surprise that Bitcoin is failing to rally despite weak inflation data, but the Ethereum and altcoin crash might have been predictable,” 10xResearch added.
Bitcoin miners up double digits despite BTC’s price slump
Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining stocks have been performing strong in recent weeks and are now making up some lost ground from April’s halving event, an industry analyst says.
“Mining stocks underperformed prior to the halving due to fears about post-halving profitability,” Mitchell Askew, head analyst at Blockware Solutions, told Cointelegraph.
Related: Altcoins a ‘relatively huge’ risk as days of big returns are gone, say analysts
But that fear has now since been relieved, and mining stocks are returning to equilibrium after underperforming relative to Bitcoin and its proxies, such as MicroStrategy (MSTR).
Askew noted the Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners exchange-traded fund, WGMI, is now up around 54% since the halving event, a sign that market confidence has returned to the mining sector.
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