The biggest 3-day clearing of the year for crypto
Update (1:55 am, August 5): This article has been updated to include updated price figures for Bitcoin and Ether.
The crypto market has completed its biggest three-day selloff in a year since Aug. 2, with a short run of up to $510 billion.
The sharp sell-off in crypto comes at a time when stocks have been underperforming, with the S&P 500 falling as much as 4.4% in the same timeframe.
The market's rout was led by weak employment data, subdued growth among major technology stocks, and fears of an economic downturn.
A number of major companies, including Microsoft and Intel, were hit by below-expected Q2 results and market leader Nvidia was hit by expectations that it could slow down in September, which saw capital flow into smaller, slower-moving companies.
The last time a crypto traded this high in a three-day period was in mid-August 2023.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) prices fell sharply during the August 5th flash market selloff, with the assets down 10% and 18% in the past two hours.
As of press time, BTC and ETH have dropped 20% and 28% in the past week.
Layer-1 Network Solana (SOL) has fallen 30.6% since July 30, making it the most difficult cryptocurrency among the top 10 tokens.
Many market analysts viewed the surge in crypto sales as aggravating, with the trading firm taking hundreds of millions of dollars off its books over the past several days, according to data from Arkham Intelligence.
Related: Bitcoin eyes $58K CME gap next as 8% BTC price router longs ‘rekt'
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index – an indicator that tracks the market sentiment on Bitcoin and crypto – has fallen back to “fear” and currently shows 26 points from the time of publication, according to Alternative.me data.
Going forward, the crypto market is staring down the barrel of another tough week with most of the losses experienced over the weekend needing to be bolstered by higher levels and activity by traditional financial institutions.
“Bitcoin entered the CME gap, but technically, it can only be filled during TradFi trading hours,” Keith Allan, co-founder of Trade Wealth Material Indicators, wrote in a recent X post on August 4.
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