$70 billion disappeared from crypto markets as SEC cracks down on CEX: Market Watch

Bitcoin fell over $1,000 in the past 24 hours to hit a three-week low below $22,000 as the SEC officially cracked down on crypto staking.

Most altcoins are bleeding just as badly, with ADA, DOGE, OKB, SOL, DOT and many more dumping over 5% in a day.

BTC unloads below $22,000

It was earlier this month, following the US Fed’s latest interest rate hike when the biggest cryptocurrency soared to $24,300 (on Bitstamp) to hit a five-month high. . However, the tides turned at that time when the bears called out their presence.

BTC was not only unable to sustain above $24,000, but abandoned back down to $23,000 days later. It spent the weekend around this level on low trading volumes before trying to overcome it once again earlier this week, but to no avail.

As such, bitcoin remained stuck in a familiar range near $23,000. That’s when the landscape changed when rumors of the SEC cracking down on crypto staking materialized, and the regulator went after Kraken.

In the following hours, BTC collapsed around $1,500 and fell to a three-week low of $21,600. Despite recovering a few hundred dollars now, bitcoin is still down more than 3% on the day. Its market capitalization has fallen to $420 billion, while its dominance over altcoins is 41.4%.

Altcoins in red

Altcoins also turned red on a daily scale following SEC actions. Ethereum is down 5% in one day and is struggling at $1,550. For reference, ETH was sitting well above $1,700 until a few days ago.

Binance Coin, Ripple, Polygon, Litecoin and Tron fell up to 4% in one day. Even more losses are evident from Cardano, Dogecoin, OKB, Solana, Polkadot and Shiba Inu dropped by up to 8%.

The situation with small and mid-cap altcoins is similar, as most have fallen by 5-10%. As such, it’s no wonder that the cumulative market capitalization of all crypto assets fell $70 billion in one day and sits inches above $1 trillion.