The price of the largest cryptocurrency by market cap nosedived almost 7% to near $54,000 over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.

Ether also dropped around 10% to around $2,850, swinging below $3,000 for the first time since mid-May.

The collapse of the two biggest cryptocurrencies by market cap pushed the total value of the cryptocurrency market down almost 9% to $2.08 trillion.

The market downturn comes as Mt. Gox, an early crypto exchange that collapsed more than a decade ago, finally began to repay customers after a protracted bankruptcy process, per a notice on its website, which is currently delivering a page-not-found error.

In total, Mt. Gox creditors expect to receive $9.2 billion in Bitcoin.

The market expects most Mt. Gox users dump their tokens, but we might see a bounce back if the selling is lower than anticipated, Rachel Lin, co-founder and CEO of SynFutures, a decentralised crypto derivatives exchange, told DL News.

The sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies extends a month of losses.

Despite the recent approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds, the market hasnt seen the same upswing it saw after the approval of Bitcoin ETFs in January.

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Since the beginning of June, Bitcoin has fallen almost 20% from around $67,000.

Ether has also plummeted about 24% from around $3,700.

Lin says its possible that Bitcoins price may tank even further on the heels of the Mt. Gox payouts: If there is enough selling to push the price lower, we might be looking at the $50,000 level soon.

Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.

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Bitcoin crashes below $55000 Here's where Mt. Gox repayments may push the price - DLNews