The crypto markets rounded the week off with a half-percent bump to US$986bn on Friday morning, yet still 4.3% down over the seven day period.
Bitcoin slumped 6.2% to a clean US$20,000 over the week, while Ethereum fared slightly better with a 4.7% drop to head below US$1,600.
Numerous factors contributed to the slump, including a poorly performing equities market and ongoing rate hike worries in the US.
Almost all large-cap network tokens ended the week in negative territory, with Solana’s US$11bn SOL token faring particularly poorly by shedding 9.4%. Cardano dropped 2.5% while Polkadot and Tron fell by about 3%.
Binanace’s BNB token – the fifth largest cryptocurrency at a market cap of US$45bn – shed 6.2%.
The shock whistleblowing leaks coming out of Ava Labs seem to have had a significant impact on the company’s US$5.7bn Avalanche network, which fell by over 15% in the past seven days.
It was a bearish week for the memecoins, with Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) losing roughly 9% a piece.
Around 4% in total value locked exited the decentralised finance (Defi) sector this week, with MakerDAO, Uniswap and Aave being among the heaviest hit.