Bitcoin Crashes Towards $20K on Inflation (CPI) Numbers: Market Watch

Although the US CPI data was quite close to the estimated target, it still had a vigorous effect on BTC’s price, which dumped towards $20,000.

The alternative coins are also deep in the red, with Solana – yesterday’s top performer – slumping by double digits today.

Bitcoin Dips to $20K

The past several days were going quite well for the primary cryptocurrency. The asset had tumbled to $18,500 in the middle of last week but began its gradual recovery almost immediately.

As such, it spiked above $20,000 before the working week’s end and jumped to $22,000 during the weekend. Even more gains came on Monday and Tuesday as it charted a multi-week high above $22,600.

This is where the landscape changed as the US announced an inflation rate of 8.3% for the month of August. This was just 0.2% higher than the estimations, but bitcoin reacted with a sudden price dump.

The asset lost the $22,000 line and slumped even lower. As a result, it briefly dipped below $20,000 (on Bitstamp) earlier today for the first time in a week.

As of now, it stands just north of that coveted level, but its market capitalization has plummeted way below $400 billion, and its dominance over the altcoins has declined by 1% in a day.

Altcoins Deep in Red

Most altcoins were doing just fine lately, but the US CPI numbers brought them down as well.

Ethereum, ahead of the upcoming Merge, jumped above $1,700 and remained there for several days. However, the second-largest crypto plunged by more than 6% in the past 24 hours and now struggles to maintain $1,600.

Similar daily nosedives are evident from Binance Coin, Ripple, Cardano, Polkadot, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Polygon, and Tron. Solana, on the other hand, has dumped by over 11% in a day from $40 to $33.

The situation with the lower- and mid-cap alts is quite identical. ATOM, NEAR, APE, and FLOW have emerged as today’s biggest losers with double-digit declines.

The crypto market cap has seen over $70 billion gone in a day, and the metric is now down below $1 trillion.