Altcoins Dive as Market Cap Drops Under $1 Trillion
The cryptocurrency market saw a violent session as investors frantically fled to liquidity by rapidly unwinding their positions. When the United States, Israel, and Iran started attacking each other on February 28, the safe haven narrative temporarily came to life. However, it was mostly overtaken by a more general risk-off feeling. For the first time since early March, the total altcoin market capitalization broke the psychological $1 trillion level due to the accelerated sell-off, according to market data.
The sector’s valuation lingered around $987 billion as of 12:15 p.m., a somber quarterly milestone. Ethereum, which had a 4% intraday decline, led the downdraft. The second-largest digital asset fell to $1,972 after failing to maintain its top of $2,074, bringing its market capitalization below $240 billion. The volatility proved fatal for overleveraged traders, triggering nearly $120 million in long liquidations. Even though ETH made a brief noon comeback above $2,000, the rise lacked conviction, and at the time of writing, the asset was once again trading below the cutoff.
With a 5.4% decline, Solana performed even worse, becoming the largest laggard among high-cap assets. In just 48 hours, SOL has lost almost 12% of its value since reaching a wall of resistance at $93 on Wednesday. The impact on the futures market was uneven, with punished long positions accounting for an astounding $25 million of the $26 million in total SOL liquidations. Both XRP and BNB saw their valuations decline, falling 2.7% to $1.33 and 2.8% to $609, respectively.
The largest decline of the day came from SIREN, which plummeted by 51.5% in a near-complete erasure of recent gains, while high-beta digital assets like WLD took the brunt of the panic, down 10%. Bitcoin Cash defied the trend with a tiny 1.3% increase, accompanied by small green candles from LEO (0.3%) and Canton (3.2%). The micro-cap Trillions, which had an astounding, although probably illiquid, 7,700% increase in just one day, was the real outlier.
