Crypto Markets See Sharp Decline as Total Market Cap Drops $12 Billion in One Hour

Major cryptocurrency Bitcoin has again dipped below the $7,000 point today, according to Cointelegraph's BTC price index.

Bitcoin is down around 5 percent over the past 24 hours, trading at around $6,996 at press time.

The digital currency is hardly holding monthly gains, while weekly losses have amounted to around 1 percent by press time.

Ethereum is now trading at $258, down more than 11 percent over a 24 hour period to press time.

Total market cap is down dramatically within just one hour, and appears to continue the downward trend, seeing another dip.

Total crypto market capitalization is around $222 billion at press time, down from yesterday's high of $240 billion.

Going in parallel with the sharp plunge of the markets, Bitcoin's dominance has significantly increased over a short period of time, up one percent, currently amounting to 54.3 percent.

The average losses of most of the top altcoins by market cap range within an interval of 9 to 12 percent to press time, with major coins Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and EOS down 11 percent, 10.2 percent, and 10.9 percent respectively by press time.

Bitcoin Gold, which will be delisted from major crypto exchange Bittrex by mid September, sees smaller losses, down 4.6 percent and trading at $20.60 at press time.

In contrast, another hard fork of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Diamond, is seeing extraordinary growth today, up 110 percent over the past 24 hours to press time.