A wave of panic swept through financial markets on Monday as both cryptocurrency and traditional assets experienced significant drops. This left investors grappling with uncertainty and caused service disruptions at major brokerage firms.
Downdetector, a platform that tracks service outages, reported a surge in complaints from Fidelity and Vanguard customers on Monday morning. Over 2,800 Vanguard users and nearly 4,000 Fidelity users reported issues accessing the platforms’ services as markets plunged. This service disruption coincided with a major downturn in the cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin and other digital assets experiencing substantial losses.
The total cryptocurrency market cap dipped below $2 trillion, reflecting an 8% decline in just 24 hours according to CoinGecko data. The drastic downturn, dubbed “Crypto Black Monday” by some market observers, saw a more pronounced decline than traditional markets, although the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also recorded losses of 2.66% and 3.12% respectively during the same period.