Bitcoin (BTC) Falls to $96K, Leading Altcoins Suffer Substantial Losses (Market Watch)

The last 24 hours have not been pleasant for the crypto bulls since most of the leading digital assets have headed south. Bitcoin (BTC), for instance, retreated to roughly $96,000.

The situation with most of the well-known altcoins, including Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), and others, is no better. The meme coin sector is also deep in the red, with some tokens recording double-digit declines.

BTC Takes a Step Back

Last week was rather turbulent for the primary cryptocurrency, whose price reached a local top of almost $99,000 on February 14 and a local bottom of less than $95,000 on February 12. The lower mark was observed shortly after the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index data for January. The actual inflation rate was higher than expectations which caused the entire crypto market to bleed heavily.

Contrary to the volatile business week, the weekend was quiet with BTC’s valuation consolidating at around $97,000-$97,500.

However, the bears took control at the start of the new business week, suppressing the price to as low as $95,800. In the following hours, BTC slightly rebounded to the current $96,100 (per CoinGecko’s data).

The asset’s market capitalization has retraced to approximately $1.906 trillion, whereas its dominance against the alternative coins remains almost unchanged at around 59.7%.

The Alts are More Affected

As mentioned above, several large-cap altcoins have tumbled in the last 24 hours. Ripple’s XRP is down 3%, Solana (SOL) tanked by 4%, whereas Litecoin (LTC) slipped by 5%. On the other hand, Cardano (ADA), Ethereum (ETH), and TRON (TRX) are among the few charting some gains.

The meme coin niche is also predominantly covered in red. Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Official Trump (TRUMP), and many more have headed south, while lesser-known tokens like MEOW (MEOW), ai16z (AI16Z), and Ket (KET) have collapsed by double digits.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization currently stands at roughly $3.19 trillion, representing a 0.88% decrease for the day.