Ethereum, Solana and XRP Lead Losses in Rough Week for Crypto Market

The crypto market took a hard hit this week, with Ethereum, the second biggest digital asset, one of the most severely bruised.

Every major coin and token is down significantly over the past seven days but Ethereum (ETH) is trading for $1,543—a drop of over 6% in the past week.

The asset isn’t just suffering in the short-term, either: it’s at its lowest point since March, CoinGecko data shows.

Ethereum’s network underwent a major upgrade over a year ago, moving to a proof-of-stake blockchain which in part helped it become a more energy efficient protocol. But the move has done little to the asset’s price.

Of the other top 20 biggest virtual coins and tokens, Toncoin (TON), has been hit the hardest—down over 10% in seven days, trading hands for $1.95.

The native cryptocurrency of The Open Network surged after popular messaging app Telegram launched a self-custodial digital wallet for its users last month but it has now largely erased those gains.

Solana (SOL), the eighth biggest digital asset by market cap, is down nearly 8% over the week. The asset has experienced a pummeling since alleged crypto crook Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial started last week: it was once a favorite investment of his collapsed digital asset megabrand and exchange FTX—and has been mentioned several times during the trial.

Meanwhile, Ripple (XRP), Polygon (MATIC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are all other major losers, having shed over 8% of their price.

And Bitcoin, the biggest and oldest asset, is down over 4% over the week, trading hands for $26,759.

Only last week, investment firm CoinShares said in a report that there had been a surge of investment into the crypto market coming from institutional investors.