Cryptocurrencies suffered substantial losses as the U.S. business day came to a close, with bitcoin (BTC) tumbling below $59,000 and Ethereum's ether (ETH) losing almost 10%.

Bitcoin had topped $62,700 earlier in the day, but recently was down 6.5% from 24 hours earlier. Amid the rout, it got as low as $58,240, the lowest price since Aug. 19. Ether traded as high as $2,700 earlier Wednesday, but recently fetched less than $2,500.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the sell-off. The sudden downturn triggered $313 million in liquidations of leveraged crypto derivatives positions over the past 24 hours, the biggest washout since Aug. 5 crash, CoinGlass data shows. ETH traders suffered over $100 million in liquidations, while BTC traders endured $95 million.

Other top-10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization have seen similar declines, with BNB (BNB) falling nearly 4% to $528, Solana's (SOL) dropping 7% to $146 and (XRP) trading down 4% to $0.56. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Tron (TRX) were also down 6.5% and 2.25% respectively, trading at $0.098 and $0.158.

The Telegram-associated (TON) token was actually up nearly 5% over the past 24 hours, after falling precipitously on the news that Telegram founder Pavel Durov had been arrested in France on various charges.

Bitcoin Ether SOL XRP Market Wrap

Nikhilesh De

Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation, covering regulators, lawmakers and institutions. When he's not reporting on digital assets and policy, he can be found admiring Amtrak or building LEGO trains. He owns < $50 in BTC and < $20 in ETH. He was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers' Journalist of the Year in 2020.

Krisztian Sandor

Krisztian Sandor recently graduated from NYU's business and economic reporter program as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Reuters and Forbes previously. Originally from Budapest, Hungary, he is now based in New York. He holds BTC and ETH.