(Bloomberg) —
Cryptocurrencies underpinning some of the most popular decentralized finance protocols tumbled as the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin triggers a stampede out of many of the digital-asset market’s most popular tokens.
DeFi favorite Avalanche plunged about 30%, while Solana slumped more than 20% and Aave fell 24%. Bitcoin fared better, and was down about 3.7% after tumbling to an almost 11-month low of less than $30,000. The TerraUSD stablecoin continued its downward spiral.
“UST’s collapse undercuts confidence in all liquidity protocols,” said Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion. “If UST can fail, maybe Aave can too. Sort of like when Bear Stearns failed, it focused people’s attention on whether Lehman would fail.”
The TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin continued to spiral lower, bouncing between 20 and 90 cents. Backers of the coin are trying to raise about $1.5 billion to shore up the token after it crashed from its dollar peg, according to the founder of a firm that was approached about the deal.
“Is the market getting spooked by what’s happening with Terra? The answer is yes,” Craig W. Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler, said by phone. “Money-market funds are important to investors and right now we’re questioning the third-largest money-market fund in crypto land. People did not think we were going to break the buck on that and that’s clearly happened.”
Terra’s troubles have been the dominant story in finance all week. “The breaking of an inadequately robust or collateralized protocol is destroying value,” said Hugo Rogers, chief investment officer at Deltec Bank & Trust. “And this is having knock-on effects.”
Sentiment was also crushed after data showed US consumer prices rose by more than forecast in April, indicating inflation will persist at elevated levels for longer. The data point also suggests the Federal Reserve will stay on its path of aggressive interest-rate hikes, creating an unfavorable environment for cryptos and other risk assets.
“There is extreme fear across the crypto market,” said Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at the UK-based digital-asset broker GlobalBlock.
Cryptocurrencies and other riskier assets have been under pressure all year. The Fed and other central banks are raising interest rates to fight red-hot inflation, creating an unfavorable environment for risk assets.
Bitcoin on Wednesday afternoon in New York was trading around $29,700. The area around $30,000 had been an “especially sensitive zone,” for Bitcoin, wrote James Malcolm, head of foreign exchange and crypto research at UBS. That’s where mining economics turn negative, “ which could potentially lead to increased coin sales by this key cohort,” he said. He added that long-term accumulators like MicroStrategy Inc. begin to fall below historical breakevens.
“Below this there is little technical support until the low-20ks, where margin calls kick in,” Malcolm wrote.
Bitcoin’s Relative Strength Index is now at 22, showing that it’s at its most oversold since January. The coin now needs to hold $28,000. A break below that level could start a new wave of selling.
Meanwhile, Coinbase Global Inc. shares and bonds fell to new lows Wednesday, signaling investor skepticism about the prospects of the crypto exchange in a bear-market. The company reported lower-than-expected revenues yesterday, and warned trading volume and monthly transacting users in the second quarter is expected to be lower than in the first.
Piper Sandler‘s Johnson says that’s another concern for crypto investors right now. “It’s the largest exchange here in the United States and they just turned a loss,” he said, adding that Terra’s troubles are all “snowballing in crypto land.”
Read more: Coinbase Tumbles to Record Lows as Crypto Meltdown Deepens
Still, a lot of crypto investors, cognizant of the fact that Bitcoin has gone through a boom-and-bust cycle before only to recoup losses over and over again, are preaching patience.
“Ultimately every investor needs to size positions based on their risk level and time horizon,” said Alex Tapscott, managing director of the digital asset group at Ninepoint Partners. “We believe Bitcoin will recover and that we’re still in the early stages of this new internet of value. Keep calm and HODL.”
(Updates throughout.)
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