It’s been a little over a week since the launch of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), and the cryptocurrency market is struggling.
Over the past week, the value of Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen more than 10%, according to CoinGecko. The price of the largest digital coin by market capitalization is currently $41,002.
Last week it closed at $49,000.
The long-awaited Bitcoin ETF has been a huge success, with BlackRock’s iShares ETF raising more than $1 billion in assets under management.
So why are prices falling? This probably has to do with investors cashing in on the profits they made from the initial ETF hype.
Some analysts said ETF approval has already been “priced in.” This could mean that traders and investors are unlikely to continue buying once approval becomes official.
The rest of the cryptocurrency market also took a huge hit last week. Solana (SOL) has lost more than 7% of its value in the past week and is priced at $92.38.
Avalanche (AVAX) is down more than 14% and trading at $32.82. Both assets performed very well in December as they attracted interest from institutional investors.
Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest digital coin, lost 8% in value last week. The current price is $2,466.
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved 10 spot BTC ETFs, the cryptocurrency industry is now waiting for the spot ETH ETF to drop.
Wall Street’s top regulator on Thursday postponed the deadline for a decision on Fidelity’s proposed spot Ethereum ETF to March 5, sending prices of the asset lower.
The overall cryptocurrency market currently stands at $1.7 trillion and is down 2.8% in the last 24 hours.