Bloody Friday: Ethereum Price Plunges as Sea of Red Engulfs Crypto Markets

The crypto markets turned sour on Friday, as five top-10 coins posted weekly losses of at least 9%. The ethereum price bore the brunt of the damage, while bitcoin dipped but managed to stay afloat.
The market has spent the last two weeks struggling to stay above $100 billion. That trend continued on Thursday, as the total cryptocurrency market cap briefly crossed the $100 billion mark before taking a southward turn on Friday. At present, the total market cap is $96.1 billion

Bitcoin Price Weathers the Storm
The bitcoin price stumbled on Friday, declining 2.8% after rising as high as $2,616 on Thursday. For the week, bitcoin posted a relatively-stable 0.9% decrease to its present value of $2,516. Bitcoin now has a market cap of $41.4 billion.Ethereum Price Erases June Progress

The ethereum price appears to be in a tailspin, plunging 7% for the day and 18% for the week. Since crossing $400 on June 12 in a triumphant advance, the ethereum price has declined by almost 40%. At its present value of $252, ethereum is worth less than it was a month ago
Ethereum’s nosedive has reduced its total valuation to $23.5 billion. Ethereum’s market cap is now just 57% as large as bitcoin’s. Ethereum trading volume, which consistently led all coins during June, now trails bitcoin by more than $250 million.

IOTA, BitShares Lead Altcoin Decline

The altcoin markets find themselves engulfed in a sea of red. The normally-steady Ripple price fell by 9% to $0.242 over the course of the week, while Ethereum Classic dropped 11% to $17. The NEM price has declined more than 9% in the past 24 hours alone; it currently sits at $0.154. The EOS price has cooled off since its record-setting ICO; on Friday it declined 16% to $2.77.But the downturn hit no major cryptocurrencies as hard as IOTA, Stratis, and BitShares. Eighth-ranked IOTA fell 14% for the day and 27% for the week; the decline pushed the IOTA price to $0.322 and market cap to $895 million.

Stratis also posted a 24-hour decline of 14% to $5.14 and a $506 million market cap. Nevertheless, Stratis still clings to a top-10 ranking, because the BitShares price plummeted this week, too. It fell 26% to $0.189, reducing its market cap to $491 million.

Litecoin and Dash were the only leading coins to post positive weekly returns, although they have both declined significantly since reaching all-time highs earlier in the week. The litecoin price currently trades around $48, while the Dash price rests just under the $200 mark at $199.

Flippening Watch

Ethereum’s terrible week enabled bitcoin to pull further ahead in market cap dominance. Last Friday, bitcoin (40.5%) held a 12.6% lead over ethereum (27.9%). Bitcoin steadily increased that distance throughout the week.At present, bitcoin boasts a 43.1% market cap share, while ethereum lags behind by 18.4% with a 24.5% share. This is the widest gap between bitcoin and ethereum since June 27, when bitcoin very briefly advanced to a 20% lead.