Ethereum Sinks 8% in Saturday Afternoon Dip

The price of Ethereum has fallen by 8% in the past 24 hours, according to data from metrics site Nomics.

Ethereum’s price started to drop from 6 am UTC, when it sank, steadily but almost without reprieve, from $2,548 to its current price of $2,374. Ethereum’s market cap is now $274 billion.

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $647 billion, has fallen by 6.8% in the past 24 hours to $34,500. Binance Coin has fallen by 7.18% to $318, and Cardano by 10% to $1.4.

In fact, most of the top coins have fallen, and today’s mid-afternoon dip has seared 4.85% off of crypto’s global market capitalization, which now sits at $1.59 trillion.

The dip even erased some of the startling gains made by privacy coins Monero and ZCash this morning. Just a few hours ago, they recorded daily gains of close to 30%. The dip has trimmed that to 7.82% for Monero and 2.94% for ZCash.

Ethereum’s woes—along with other cryptocurrencies—started just after the coin hit its all-time high of about $4,350 on May 12. Hours later, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk slammed Bitcoin’s proof-of-work mining mechanism as environmentally unsound. Ethereum, like many other cryptocurrencies, uses the same.

Then last week, three major payments associations in China reconfirmed their commitment to a 2017 regulation that prohibited financial institutions from dealing with crypto. The associations also reiterated warnings against crypto speculation.

That news was largely misreported as a new ban on crypto, fuelling fears across the crypto market. Ethereum fell by 38% during the crash. Days later, a state committee of the Chinese government said that Bitcoin mining and trading would be monitored to "prevent and control financial risks." Ethereum fell to lows of $2,374 on May 28.

Crypto-skeptical sentiment from China continues. Today, the local media—tightly controlled by the Chinese government—published criticisms of crypto derivatives trading, tweeted Colin Wu, a Chinese cryptocurrency journalist.