Most of the World's Biggest Cryptocurrencies Are Down Today

The top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are all down today in excess of 10 percent, market data reveals.

According to CoinMarketCap.com, those cryptocurrencies have fallen by at least 13% – and in excess of 25% in the case of XRP – since the start of the day. At one point, within the 24-hour period, the overall market capitalization for all tokens had lost nearly $200 billion, falling from $710 billion to $536 billion at its lowest.

As of press time, that figure had bounced back somewhat, hovering around $573 billion.

The drop illustrates the turbulence in cryptocurrency markets today, with bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap, having fallen by 14 percent in 24 hours, bottoming out at $11,182 before recovering slightly.

Indeed, only several of the 100 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap's main page are reporting price gains, with assets like siacoin and Bitcoin Gold reporting losses in excess of 30% over the past 24 hours.

On the brighter side, today's market correction is not as severe as the one that occurred late in December 2017, when the overall market value fell more than $200 billion. At the time, bitcoin had fallen to $10,800.

Further, today's slump still leaves the market well up year on year. On Jan. 16, 2017 the combined value of all crypto tokens was under $16 billion. Today's low is at roughly similar levels to those seen a month ago, when the market cap stood at around $554 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Ripple.

Down graph image via Shutterstock