Crypto Loses $500B, but Gold and Silver Wipe Out $10T in Days

The broader market correction continues in crypto, as bitcoin just slumped below $75,000 for the first time in almost a year, with ETH dumped beneath $2,200.

While this sounds bad, because it is, it’s also worth looking for a different perspective, which might show that ‘we are still early’ in crypto.

The Crypto Calamity

Bitcoin traded above $90,000 just a few days ago. The asset challenged that resistance on Wednesday before the first FOMC meeting for the year. However, it failed there perhaps due to the Fed’s decision to pause the interest rate cuts or the growing tension in the Middle East.

Since then, the cryptocurrency plummeted to $81,000, rebounded slightly to $84,000 on Friday, and fell below $76,000 on Saturday. Monday morning began with another nosedive to a fresh multi-month low of $74,400 (on Bitstamp). This meant that BTC had lost over $15,000 in less than a week, and almost $10,000 in 36 hours.

Naturally, most altcoins followed suit, with many amplifying bitcoin’s losses. The total crypto market cap shed around $300 billion since Saturday and $500 billion since Wednesday. Over-leveraged traders were wrecked for more than $2.5 billion during the weekend, while another $800 million, mostly from longs, has been liquidated in the past 24 hours.

Gold and Silver Drop Hard(er)

Bitcoin is often blamed for being too volatile. And, that’s not entirely untrue, as explained above. However, the current market environment across all financial fields is highly atypical. Whether it’s the geopolitical uncertainty, the behavior of certain country leaders, or something else, even the oldest safe-haven assets have behaved irrationally lately.

Gold has been the largest non-real estate asset for decades. It was joined by silver in the past few months as it skyrocketed to fresh peaks of over $120 in a matter of weeks. At the same time, gold tapped $5,600 to register yet another all-time high. On Friday, though, something broke in the precious metal market.

Silver went from over $121 to $72 on Friday and $70.5 today, while gold dropped from $5,600 to $4,400 earlier today. This meant that both of those assets erased $10 trillion from their combined market caps in just a couple of days.

From a crypto perspective, it’s clear that the ‘we are still early’ narrative is valid. After all, gold and silver shed $10 trillion – with a T. That’s more than three times the size of the entire cryptocurrency market. And, even with this massive drop, silver alone is bigger than the market caps of bitcoin and all altcoins combined.

What about gold, you might ask? Well, the yellow metal’s market cap is over 10x larger than BTC and the alts. So yes, we just might be still early.

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