Markets • May 12, 2023, 6:31AM EDT
Quick Take
- Bitcoin has fallen to a low not seen for two months, leading the wider crypto market down.
- Memecoins like pepe and milady — which pumped after an Elon Musk tweet — are falling even more rapidly.
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The crypto market has taken a turn for the worse as a combination of large-cap coins and hyped up memecoins have headed south, knocking off $40 billion of the global crypto market cap.
Bitcoin is leading the trend, having broken below a recent floor of around $27,000 to its current price of $26,300, according to CoinGecko. This is the lowest bitcoin has been in two months, since its rapid rally from $20,000.
The majority of cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market cap are down around 6% over the last seven days, showing consistency across the market. Outside of the top 10, polygon was hit hard, down 14%, while memecoin shiba inu fell 13%.
Bitcoin slides with pepe
Yet it’s the memecoin du jour, pepe, that is seeing even more pain. The token, which had a meteoric rise in market cap in early May, is down 22% today to $0.00000128, as its price continues to slide. It has fallen consistently since its all-time high on May 5, when it hit a $1.8 billion market cap.
Beyond this, a token named after — but not associated with — the Milady Maker NFT project, fell 53% in the last 24 hours. This is a hangover from its sudden pump on May 11 when Elon Musk tweeted a Milady meme, causing its NFT collection and associated projects to soar in value. Similarly the Milady NFT collection itself has seen its floor price slide to not far above its value before Musk’s tweet.
Outside of crypto, the wider markets are largely flat, with futures on the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 little changed.