Over the past two weeks, the cryptocurrency market has been on the verge of a new rally. Bitcoin has reached a historical high. Other assets have also approached their maximum levels. There was every reason to believe that the crypto market would soon rally or at least show slow but long-term growth. However, instead, the main cryptocurrencies went down, which led to serious losses of retail investors.

Bitcoin dropped the most, hitting the level of $53.000. Over the past day, investors who traded the BTC/USD pair lost $978 million amid an 8% slump in bitcoin. Trades of more than 235,000 speculators were closed on crypto exchanges around the world. The biggest loss of a trader amounted to $10 million. Those who opened long margin positions on the EUR/USD pair also incurred significant losses. Investors lost about $247 million due to a decline in ether.

The crypto market shrank by 6% amid the sharp drop in cryptocurrencies. Now the total capitalization of the crypto market is $ 1.7 trillion. The daily trading volume, as of March 23, comes in at $ 192 billion. The share in daily operations on the BTC/USD pair decreased to 58.2%. Despite the considerable slump in the value of cryptocurrencies, the fundamental background remains positive. For example, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said, "Bitcoin is lacking key ingredients that would make it a useful currency. As a result, the cryptocurrency is essentially more of a substitute for gold than the dollar. Crypto assets are highly volatile." Coinbase has completed the listing of Cardano and announced support for crypto assets on its platform. Now the maximum number of digital coins on Coinbase has increased to 43.

Despite the positive news, the crypto market was overwhelmed by another wave of correction. The BTC/USD pair suffered the most. Retail traders were ready to continue to open long margin positions as bitcoin had been hovering around the psychological level of $ 60,000 for more than a week. It was expected to add gains. However, BTC faced the consequences of the February rally. The deteriorating economic situation due to the pandemic, the low interest of institutional investors, and fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market delivered a severe blow to the BTC/USD pair.

Another wave of correction pushed bitcoin down to the level of $55,000. If last week speculators expected BTC to break above $60,000 for further growth, now BTC is likely to get stuck at a lower level of $55,000. Despite the positive fundamental background and small investments of Thornton Place, the BTC/USD pair lacks any derivers in order to break above the important psychological level. Most likely, the pair will continue to fluctuate around $53,000-55,000. In addition, due to significant losses, the trading volume of the BTC/USD pair in the total market turnover will continue to plummet in the next few days.