Bitcoin’s tough week continued into Friday, with the leading cryptocurrency falling below $58,000. However, while Bitcoin is down this month, both Ethereum and Solana have seen larger percentage declines in August.
According to data from CoinGecko, Bitcoin has fallen more than 4% over the past day and is currently priced at $57,932. This is even lower than the $58,060 mark reached on Tuesday this week.
Bitcoin has fallen nearly 6% this week and is down about 9% since the beginning of August. But as mentioned above, while BTC is falling, other leading crypto assets are not doing so well.
Ethereum (ETH) is currently priced at $2,440, down 5% on the day and nearly 9% on the week. But it is down more than 22% this month since the beginning of August when it was around $3,146.
Solana has performed even worse on the day, down nearly 9% and is currently priced at around $133, with similar declines this week. But since the beginning of August, SOL has fallen more than 21% to just under $169.
Other major currencies have seen similar declines in August, with Dogecoin (DOGE) down about 18% and The Open Network’s Toncoin (TON) down 21%. TON was largely flat in August as of the end of last week, but fell sharply after the arrest of Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov on Saturday, as TON is closely tied to the popular messaging app.
The market-wide decline has driven liquidations, with $186 million worth of long and short positions liquidated in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data. About $162 million of that was in long positions, with Bitcoin leading all liquidations with a value of nearly $58 million.
The reason for Friday’s stock market decline was not immediately apparent. Stocks fell only slightly on Friday after the Federal Reserve released an inflation report that was in line with expectations. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that "it's time to adjust policy," fueling expectations that rate cuts are still coming soon.
