Key Takeaways
- Crypto markets pulled back sharply on Monday morning, with their collective value dropping by $83 billion in just 13 minutes.
- In the past 24 hours, nearly all major cryptocurrencies have seen their market cap decline.
- Avalanche (AVAX) has bucked the trend, clocking strong price gains while other tokens have crashed.
In the early hours of Monday morning, a sharp correction wiped billions of dollars from the total crypto market capitalization, with major tokens losing up to 10% of their value in just half an hour.
At the time of writing (December 11 2023), nearly all of the top 20 coins by market cap had recorded 24-hour losses. In a notable exception to the rule, Avalanche (AVAX) was up more than 9% during the same period.
AVAX Survives Crypto Market Pullback
After climbing nearly continuously since the beginning of the month, a market-wide crash on Monday, December 11, reversed a week’s worth of gains.
Starting at 02:00 (UTC), $83 billion of market capitalization was wiped out in just 13 minutes. Following a mild rebound, at the time of writing, the overall market was down 4.16% in 24 hours.
Not including stablecoins, Avalanche was one of very few cryptocurrencies to survive the pullback. Thanks to a strong recovery from the early morning dip, the price of AVAX climbed more than 7% in the same timeframe.
Monday’s performance tops off a bullish month of gains for the token, which has increased in value by nearly 150% during the past 30 days. Since hitting a yearly low of $8.70 on September 25, the price of AVAX has surged by around 400% to $34.87, even taking a $213 million token unlock in its stride.
Avalanche Boosted by Staking Rewards Amid Record High Transaction Volumes
With trading activity climbing to record highs in recent weeks, the platform’s staking rewards have further boosted the AVAX market.
With staked tokens currently returning an Annual Percentage Yield (APY) of 8.67%, Avalanche’s staking yields outperform those offered by many rival platforms. Given such high returns, at present, nearly 60% of all AVAX tokens are currently staked. In contrast, Ethereum’s current staking ratio is just 23.7%.
In the autumn and winter of 2023, AVAX trade volumes have also climbed to new heights. After recording an all-time high daily trading volume of over $1.8 billion on November 17, the cryptocurrency nearly repeated the feat on Sunday, December 10, when Token Terminal registered trades worth nearly $1.74 billion.
