The price of tokens linked to some of the best-known blockchains plunged on Friday, days after the Securities and Exchange Commission declared them securities in complaints against Coinbase and Binance. while bitcoin Ethereum only saw a slight decline, and other well-known crypto projects took the hits.
As of Sunday evening, Solana’s SOL token price has fallen nearly 30% over the seven days, while Polygon’s MATIC and ADA prices are down 28% and 29.5% over the same period.
While cryptocurrency prices fell across the board after the SEC complaints, which fell last Monday and Tuesday, it was only on Friday that the markets saw a sell-off.
The reason for Friday’s drop appears to be a decision by some of the largest cryptocurrency market makers and trading firms to divest their holdings. A Coindesk a report pointed to Tweets From analytics firm LookOnChain, which cited blockchain data to say that wallets linked to Cumberland, Jump Trading and Robinhood have uploaded a large number of tokens to the exchanges.
The large holdings of these companies, combined with the illiquid trading environment following the SEC announcement, is likely to lead to a sharp drop in prices. Meanwhile, Robinhood announced on Friday that it will delist Solana, Cardano and Polygon from the exchange as of June 27 — another potential blow to their value.
Solana and Cardano are dubbed a layer-one blockchain that aspires to challenge Ethereum, while Polygon is a “side chain” that helps process Ethereum transactions more efficiently. While it took the biggest hit in prices, other well-known blockchains took a hit in the wake of SEC complaints.
The price of seven-day tokens awarded against Filecoin and Internet Computer — both of which have also been designated as securities by the SEC — fell 26% and 24%, respectively, on Sunday. Meanwhile, a number of well-known legacy projects, notably Litecoin and Dogecoin, were not classified as securities and were down about 15%.
The crypto industry has long decried what it claims is a lack of guidance from the SEC when it comes to determining what blockchain tokens are securities. The case is the subject of a closely watched legal battle between the agency and Ripple, which is related to the XRP token. A decision is expected as early as this summer.
Bitcoin, which is down 4% over the past week, is the only token that the SEC has stated is not a security. Ethereum, whose legal status is still unclear, is down 7%. The two tokens are by far the largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
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