Solana Slides 17% to Lead Losses Amid Crypto Market Plunge

Major cryptocurrencies fell as much as 17% in 24 hours as the crypto market followed a broader decline in U.S. stock index futures on Monday. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell to under $33,700 at the time of writing after trading above $34,000 in Asian morning hours.

Solana's SOL token was down 17%, changing hands at $84.17, data from analytics tool CoinGecko showed. SOL was among the top performers in 2021, rising from $3 at the start of last year to over $259 in November. It's down 67% from its all-time high, and 42% lower than last Monday.

Similar losses were seen on ether and the tokens of Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT) and Binance Coin (BNB), which fell nearly 10% each in the past 24 hours. DOGE, the token of Dogecoin, fell 7% in the same period, among the smallest declines of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Monday’s drop caused a plunge in the broader crypto market and over $240 million in liquidations since Asian morning hours, data from analytics tool Coinglass showed. Liquidations refer to the forced closure of long or short positions by exchanges due to margin shortage. These lead to exaggerated price moves, as has been seen several times over the past 12 months.

Liquidations on bitcoin futures, which reached their lowest price levels since July 24, exceeded $63 million at the time of writing. This was exceeded by ether futures, with over $64 million in liquidation losses. Losses on altcoin futures were smaller, with SOL futures seeing $5 million in liquidations and XRP futures just $2.15 million.

Nearly 81% of all traders were long, or betting on higher prices, as some technical indicators suggested bitcoin was oversold and a price rally could be expected.

Meanwhile, some analysts said the market could see a further drop.

“Alarmingly, the sharp reversal on Friday was not followed by any meaningful bounce," said Alex Kuptsikevich, senior financial analyst at FxPro, in an email to CoinDesk. "Some observers point out that this is a worrying signal, suggesting further market declines, as we have not seen a final capitulation. Without capitulation, the markets will remain with an overhang of sellers.”

“Events are developing in a bearish scenario, so far broadly repeating what we saw in 2018 in terms of overall sentiment,” Kuptsikevich said.