Crypto Market Capitalization Drops by $230 Billion as Fear Index Reaches April Lows

This week, the crypto market’s Fear & Greed Index swiftly transitioned to “fear,” reaching levels last seen in April after a market sell-off resulted in a loss of over $230 billion in just one day.

On Friday, CoinMarketCap’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which monitors volatility, market momentum, social media activity, and dominance metrics, plummeted to 28, indicating a “fear” status and edging closer to “extreme fear.”

According to CoinMarketCap data revealed on Friday, the total cryptocurrency market cap fell to approximately $3.54 trillion, a 6% decrease from $3.78 trillion the day before. This loss exceeded $230 billion in value, marking one of the most significant single-day declines in months.

The Fear & Greed Index for traditional assets also dropped to 22, indicating extreme fear in the market. This followed a downturn in US stocks on Thursday due to issues like credit market disturbances, regional banks’ exposure to poor loans, and ongoing US-China trade tensions spreading unease across Wall Street.

Leading crypto assets experience declines

Data indicates that significant crypto assets continued to decline over the last day as the broader market correction intensified.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped nearly 6% to around $105,000, while Ether (ETH) saw an almost 8% decrease, settling at about $3,700. Among large-cap altcoins, BNB (BNB) led the downturn with a nearly 12% fall, followed closely by Chainlink (LINK) with an 11% decline and Cardano (ADA), which fell by 9%.

Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) also experienced declines of over 7%, continuing a week-long downtrend that eliminated the double-digit gains registered earlier this month.

On average, the largest non-stablecoin crypto assets fell by roughly 8%–9% in the last 24 hours.

While the market crash last week led to nearly $20 billion in liquidations, this week experienced a significantly lower level of activity.

On Friday, data from CoinGlass showed that approximately $556 million worth of leveraged positions were liquidated across exchanges, a mere fraction of last week’s figures.

From this total, around $451 million was from long positions, while $105 million resulted from short liquidations.

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NFTs, Memecoins, and ETFs respond to market downturn

In addition to major cryptocurrencies, other assets such as memecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also took a hit from the recent crash.

Memecoins, which had shown slight recovery this week, plummeted by 33% in 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. Leading memecoin assets reported losses ranging from 9% to 11% over the past day, even as trading volumes remained notably high at nearly $10 billion.

The NFT sector, which had rebounded from a $1.2 billion loss last week, reverted its gains and fell below a $5 billion valuation, a level not witnessed since July. Data from CoinGecko showed that most blue-chip collections experienced double-digit percentage drops in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs reacted to the downturn. On Thursday, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded outflows exceeding $536 million, while spot Ether ETFs showed daily net outflows of more than $56 million.