Crypto markets dropped as traders repriced the risk of Federal Reserve hikes and central bank tightening, according to Jon Knipper, director of crypto treasury management at digital asset advisory Republic Crypto. Bulls have been on a tear this year, Knipper noted, and have been knocked back by the growing realization that tighter monetary conditions, for longer, are increasingly probable.
Tokens of some of the largest blockchains, such as Solana’s SOL, Ether (ETH), XRP, Cardano’s ADA, Avalanche’s AVAX, Stellar’s XLM, and Chainlink’s LINK all fell in the past 24 hours. MKR, the governance token of lending platform MakerDAO, surged 11% in a day as investors welcomed the activation of a token buyback program.
The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) recently fell 0.4%, and the drop in prices caused over $66 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours. Slightly over 70% of these liquidations were on longs positions, or from traders betting on higher prices.
U.S. House Republicans introduced a new digital assets oversight bill on Thursday that aims to establish a regulatory framework to protect investors in the crypto sector. Gabriel Shapiro, general counsel at crypto fund Delphi Digital, noted that the bill could exclude some tokens from the definition of digital assets.