Cryptocurrency Falls Sharply, Bitcoin Down 3.42%, Ether Down 4.74% Intraday

The cryptocurrency market is showing a downward trend today. On August 30, till 5.45 pm UTC, Bitcoin fell by 3.42%, and was quoted at US$ 19,581.20, in the intra day trading. Yesterday, Bitcoin closed at US$ 20,275.60. In the last 5 days, Bitcoin fell sharply by 9.31%, and in the past 1 month, it has dropped by around 17.24%. Additionally, in the past 6 months, Bitcoin has dropped by 54.67%.

Showing a similar trend, other crypto coins also dropped sharply today. Ethereum was quoted at US$ 1,477.67, down by 4.74%. Yesterday, Ether closed at US$ 1,551.12. Litecoin was quoted at US$ 52.19, down by 6.45%, Dogecoin was quoted at US$ 0.0603 down by 5.49%, and Cardano was quoted at US$ 0.4401 down by 2.28% today, till last traded.

Significantly, S&P 500 index also dropped by 1.46%, at the time of writing.

Ether prices trend

"Ethereum's long-pending technological upgrade, dubbed the Merge, is due in mid-September. The upgrade is projected to cause a drastic reduction in ether's supply and bring a store-of-value appeal to the cryptocurrency. Traders have employed various synthetic strategies that involve buying spot and selling futures in the lead-up to the Merge, inadvertently setting the stage for price turbulence at the time of the Merge," commenting on the Ether prices, CoinDesk stated in a report. On that matter, Decentral researcher Lewis Harland told CoinDesk, "We note this risk could be relatively higher for ETH than BTC, given the ratio is about 38% higher [for ETH] and consensus Merge momentum trades."