Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell by a historic 33 percent – or roughly $60 – in early morning UTC trading.
Ether fell from close to $200 to about $132 as of press time over a 24-hour period, according to CoinDesk’s price index, marking the asset’s biggest drop in percentage terms in its five-year history as of 13:30 UTC.
According to Nomics, ether’s price fell roughly $50 in eight hours, seeing its steepest decline during a $30 fall between 9:00 UTC and 10:00 UTC. Ether’s trading volume ballooned in that time, rising from $667.6 million to $1.58 billion.
As of press time, volume had dropped to $253.7 million. However, according to Etherscan, there are more than 100,000 pending transactions currently on the network, a sign of high activity. There are on average around 63,000 pending transactions, according to the site.
Ether’s price began to rebound in early-afternoon UTC trading, rising to $143, for a 24-hour drop of 27.7 percent shortly after the publication of this article.
In terms of absolute numbers, ether saw greater declines during the 2018 bear market. At its peak, ether was worth around $1,400 and saw price swings of several hundred dollars.
Thursday’s drop comes amid broader market turmoil.
Bitcoin fell to below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019, and the U.S. stock market opened to massive losses triggering a temporary trading halt within 10 minutes. As of press time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,700 points.
Much of Thursday’s drops centers around continued uncertainty related to COVID-19, the respiratory disease currently classified by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic.