No end in sight: Crypto market continues downward spiral

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The cryptocurrency markets continue on a steady decline, and some coins are now at their annual lows—similar to the crash experienced in February—with no end in sight to the downturn as bad news continue to affect investor sentiment.

Chief amongst the decliners was Stellar Lumens which lost around 20% and is now trading at a mere $0.21 at press time—a full 60% less than its 2018 high achieved less than a month ago. It is baffling how this currency, which is supposed to be a highly innovative and intriguing one, can lose so much in the space of so little time.

Legacy Bitcoin (BTC) is also on a downward spiral and testing new lows of around $7,800 with further falls expected in the next few hours. There appears to be still some negative sentiment in the United States with regulators ganging up on the cryptocurrency world especially in Congress. News of the hearing, where the market was bashed, undoubtedly had a hugely negative effect on BTC, which continued dropping like a stone as the U.S. market progressed. Bitcoin Cash was also taking a hit and it has now dropped well below the $1,000 mark and was trading at around $870 at press time. A hit of around 10% was the average for all currencies.

The other larger currencies by market cap, such as Ethereum and Ripple (XRP), also experienced severe declines in their values. The former dropped to below the $600 mark at press time, a psychologically significant level that has not been seen since November and which could herald a further downward spiral. XRP was also down to historic lows where it traded at $0.67, which is almost 100% down from its recent high of $1.20 achieved just three weeks ago. There has been a lot of good news about Ripple in the past few days but the market remained strongly bearish with not much room for upswing.

Litecoin is also experiencing a slow decline and is now trading at around $155 with further drops expected if the market continues in this manner. Dash also experienced steep drops and has now dropped to below the $400 mark—again this is a level that has not been seen since November. The other smaller currencies by market cap such as NEO also experienced heavy losses in the mould of Stellar and was down by 20% to levels of $67 with further falls expected.