A sharp selloff of cryptocurrencies got underway this past weekend after a week of crackdowns by the US Securities and Exchange Commission on the sector triggered investor anxiety.
Several smaller digital currencies were hit exceptionally hard by selloffs, with Cardano’s ADA plummeting by 25% on Saturday. Avalanche’s AVAX, Polygon’s MATIC, and Solana’s SOL followed with double-digit losses of their own.
Of the major cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin shed 3% on Saturday while Ether, the second-ranked crypto on the market, fell by more than 6% to its lowest level since March.
While weekends are typically known as a turbulent time for cryptocurrencies, this was a particularly concerning time after the SEC launched lawsuits earlier in the week against Binance Holdings Ltd. and Coinbase Global Inc. In addition, it flagged several altcoins as unregistered securities, including ADA, MATIC, and SOL.
In addition to the recent SEC-induced industry concerns, investor anxiety was also driven by a decision coming from Robinhood Markets Inc. on Friday to drop several altcoins from its platform. Noelle Acheson, former head of market insights at Genesis Global Trading Inc., commented that price drops could have also been caused by selloffs aimed at driving prices downward.