CoinGecko reported that the most severe market correction in the global cryptocurrency market over the past decade occurred on March 13th, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a 39.6% drop. Massive selling caused the total cryptocurrency market value to plummet from $223.74 billion to $135.14 billion. In comparison, the largest cryptocurrency market sell-off this year so far was much smaller, at only -8.4%, occurring on March 20th, 2024. Similarly, although the recent four-day consecutive drop caused the total cryptocurrency market value to shrink from $2.44 trillion on August 2nd to $1.99 trillion on August 6th, these declines are not significant enough to be considered a market correction.
Due to global uncertainty, cryptocurrency investors fled risk assets overnight, with Bitcoin experiencing its biggest price drop on March 13th, 2020, at -35.2%, and Ethereum recording the second-largest price drop on the same day, at -43.1%. The second-largest cryptocurrency correction occurred on September 14th, 2017, when the total cryptocurrency market value experienced a -22.3% correction, dropping from $136.55 billion to $106.14 billion. This was consistent with Bitcoin's third-largest price drop of -20.2% on the same day. This correction occurred on the basis of relatively strong performance throughout the year, and both the cryptocurrency market and Bitcoin quickly recovered the next day, highlighting the high volatility of cryptocurrency.