Theta was testing the $10 level, with all signs pointing to it breaking through either yesterday or today. That’s not what happened, however, as an unexpected cryptocurrency market drop hit Theta very hard starting late yesterday.

Theta peaked at $9.68 (THETA/USD) on Tuesday before starting a rapid descent that went as low as $6.13. The crypto briefly recovered to the $7.5 line before falling again and then hovering around the $7.00 level. Theta currently sits at $6.75, which is a 21.50% drop over the last 24 hours.

How Did It Happen?

This massive drop has nothing to do with the Theta platform or the Theta token, but is likely a result of troubles with Bitcoin transactions since El Salvador announced Bitcoin as one of its two national currencies. That news broke yesterday and caused a frenzy in the Bitcoin market where transactions were seriously delayed, with some not going through initially. The government actually had to unplug digital currency storage to deal with the problem.

This caused ripples throughout the cryptocurrency market, and it’s one that the market is likely to at recover from over the next few days as things settle down, though a full recovery may take some time. The problem is that with a major performance issue like this, confidence in the cryptocurrency market as a whole has been damaged. We may actually have to wait a while to see prices bounce back to where they were yesterday.

Theta and a number of other cryptocurrencies had been trending well over the past week or so, until prices started to plummet late yesterday. The drop was so severe and so unexpected that it may have a long-term impact on the market.

Theta’s trade volume is still high, up more than 8% over the last 24 hours, and its market ranking has held despite the massive price change. The last time Theta saw a price quite this low was about the same time last month when it was not trending very well. It managed a great recovery since then, so it’s not unreasonable to think that Theta can bounce back from this drop as well. Theta is still well above the massive drop it experienced on July 20^th and still shows signs of being a healthy crypto.