The year 2022 has been a bad year for crypto investors thus far. The market cap of crypto fell from a high of $2.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion. This amounted to a 30% decline in just three weeks of 2022.
A study of the data reveals that the crypto market cap lost $700 billion. In this fall, BTC fell 28% and ETH declined by 40%.
The crypto market was at its highest level of $3.1 trillion in November 2021. The current level of $1.6trillion represents a 50% fall. Although this is a large fall for the crypto market characterized by volatility, this is not entirely unprecedented. There have been instances when the fall has exceeded even 50%.
In an earlier instance, BTC had risen from $13 to $280. Soon thereafter, it fell precipitously by 70% to $68. This happened in April 2013. Another time this happened was in 2017-18 when the crypto market witnessed a bull run. Then too, the market saw a fast rise followed by a steep fall.
In 2018 the crypto market cap fell from a high of $850 billion to $130 billion. This represented a fall of 85% over the year.
Many investors had predicted an increased adoption of crypto in 2022. However, the current crash belies that prediction. The only bright spot in the general air of gloom is the rise of altcoins.
It has been observed that gradually BTC and ETH are losing their dominance. In their place, altcoins are making up the larger share of the crypto market cap. Tokens such as FTM and ATOM have been performing better than both BTC and ETH.
But at the same time, other tokens such as MATIC, SOL and AVAX experienced heavy losses. Given this volatility, investors and traders are hoping for a reversal in the trend soon.
