Ether, XRP and SOL fall harder than bitcoin as macro pressure hits altcoins

Major altcoins suffered "outsized drawdowns" against bitcoin over the past 24 hours, with analysts blaming hotter U.S. inflation, rising rate-hike expectations and a strong dollar, Decrypt reported on Thursday.

The numbers

According to Decrypt's figures for the 24-hour window:

• Ether fell 5.5% to a market cap of about $289 billion.
• XRP dropped 5.1% to roughly $82.4 billion.
• Solana lost 3.8% to about $60.6 billion.
• Bitcoin slipped 3.1% (2.6% on the week) to around $1.6 trillion.

Total crypto market capitalisation declined 2.5% to roughly $2.8 trillion.

Why altcoins took the bigger hit

Wednesday's U.S. CPI showed inflation at 3.7% year on year, reviving talk of an October Fed hike. Nick Forster, founder of options venue Derive.xyz, said hedging on the platform doubled as traders moved into "protection mode".

Luke Nolan of CoinShares described it as high-beta assets getting hit harder, much like stocks, and pointed to the U.S. dollar index near an 18-month high as an extra drag on crypto liquidity.

Profit-taking after a strong run

Max Shannon of Bitwise Europe called the move partly a hangover from recent strength. Altcoin futures open interest (excluding ETH) is down about $8 billion since the start of October, he said. Ether had outperformed bitcoin for three months in a row — the first such streak since March 2021 — and U.S. ether ETFs then logged 11 straight days of outflows worth $782.8 million, with another $129.5 million leaving after a one-day inflow, per CoinGlass data he cited.

What analysts are watching

Nolan said a recovery likely needs October rate-hike expectations to fade. He sees arguments both ways: further altcoin bleeding if bitcoin loses support, or a sharp rebound if BTC moves decisively back above $80,000.

The price snapshot above comes from our latest build (CoinGecko), not a live quote. New to ether? Read What is Ethereum?