The cryptocurrency market capped last week on a sour note after Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) crashed to $80,000 on Sunday evening. While the broader market crashed, investors sought refuge in gold-backed coins.
What happened: Bitcoin Cash topped the gainers' list, returning nearly 11% to its holders in a week where blue-chip coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) fell 10% and 15%, respectively.
Bitcoin Cash is a result of a hard fork of the original Bitcoin blockchain in 2017 and is considered an affordable alternative to the apex cryptocurrency.
Physical gold-backed cryptocurrencies such as Tether Gold and PAX Gold were among the safe bets amid the downturn, yielding 2% and 1.70%, respectively.
Elsewhere, the sentiment was grim. The altcoins set to be part of a U.S. cryptocurrency reserve, namely XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), and Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), tumbled 5.76%, 7.45%, and 7.79%, respectively.
Meme heavyweights Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) plunged 9% and 2.94%, respectively, while frog-themed Pepe (CRYPTO: PEPE) tanked 8%.
Overall, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization contracted 12% over the week to $2.70 trillion.
Interestingly, all of this occurred in the week that President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and hosted the first-ever Crypto Summit at the White House.