Crypto market overview: Bears run the show as cryptocurrency market capitalization slips below $200B

• Bitcoin recovers from critical $6,000, but the upside momentum is weak
• Altcoins drive the decline with XRP and ETH losing 8% in recent 24 hours.
• Experts note the correlation with the sell-off on global cryptocurrency market.

Cryptocurrency market extended the slump with total capitalization moving under $200B handle for the first time since September 19. Altcoins lead the decline while Bitcoin is relatively stable, staying above critical $6,000. The digital coin No.1 touched $6,060 low on Thursday and recovered towards $6,1789 by press time. 

Ethereum fell as low as $186 late on Thursday. The coin is changing hands at $193.48. While it has gained about 2% since the beginning of the day, it is still down over 7% on a day-on-day basis. 

Ripple’s XRP touched $0.3760 on Thursday amid global cryptocurrency sell-off. Since that time the third largest coin with the market value of $15.6B regained some ground to trade at $0.3910 by press time, though it is still down 8% on a day-on-day basis. The recovery attempts are capped by $0.40 handle.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) collapsed to $427 handle during early Asian hours. Despite the recovery towards $436 by press time, the coin is still nearly 6% lower since this time on Thursday and mostly unchanged since the beginning of Friday.

Meanwhile, market experts believe, that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were hit by the widespread sell-off on the global financial markets. Due to recent security breaches and regulatory uncertainty, digital assets lost their safe-haven status to behave in line with risk assets.

“The selloff also appears to have stretched to more exotic instruments, with bitcoin neither displaying the qualities one would expect of gold 2.0, as it has been touted as by some cryptocurrency enthusiasts or simply escaping relatively unscathed as a new and relatively uncorrelated asset. This truly is a widespread selloff and anything perceived as a risky asset has been in the firing line. What will be interesting is whether this will be enough to force bitcoin below $6,000 which has proven to be something of a floor for the crypto on numerous occasions this year,” Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at Oanda commented.