Why Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Other Cryptocurrencies Suddenly Crashed

Key Points

1. Liquidations are picking up.
2. Gas fees are high.
3. There's no end in sight to the crypto market's meltdown right now.

What happened?

A massive sell-off on Friday in the cryptocurrency market accelerated after the stock market closed on Wall Street. The selling seems to be feeding on itself, causing panic across the market.

Altcoins are down big today with some trading more than 30% lower, but the drops in giants like Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) are staggering. As of 5:45 p.m. ET, Bitcoin is down 10.8% in the last 24 hours and 5.4% in just the last hour and a half to $35,724. Ethereum is down 16.8% in the last day and 6.9% in the last 90 minutes to $2,512.

Cardano (CRYPTO:ADA) has also tumbled 13.4% in the last 24 hours while Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) is down a whopping 19.1%. Down the altcoin list, there's rapid selling heading into the weekend.

So what?

As this is happening, gas fees are soaring, especially on the Ethereum blockchain. Gas is the price you pay validators to complete transactions, and the price of gas goes up when the blockchain is congested.

Yesterday at this time, the price of gas in Ethereum was 203.7 GWei and right now it's spiking over 550 GWei. At this time of day, it's not unusual for gas fees to be close to 100 GWei, so there's clearly a high level of activity, likely led by panic selling in the market.

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