Volatility persists after prices stabilize following crypto bloodbath

In the last 24 hours, crypto prices have mostly held steady even as volatility remains high. Looking back at the last 48 hours -- including the 12-hour period Wednesday when most cryptocurrencies dropped by more than 10% -- the worst performing assets are bitcoin cash, monero and tron. In total, the market shed more than $20 billion of value.

The Block noted earlier Thursday that volatility saw a sharp increase as the market awaited the outcome of the Bitcoin Cash hard fork clash. During that period, volumes saw a steep 80% increase across the board vs. the prior 24 hours. "Yesterday was a very high-volume day for us and the market," said Chad Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos, a fintech firm and crypto exchange operator. Still, there was no apparent cause for the selloff. The best performing crypto asset during the gyrations was Ripple's XRP token, while the two other tokens in the green were Stellar Lumens and EOS. Recently, XRP overtook ether as the number two crypto by market cap. That isn't the first time XRP has done so, but whether ether will reclaim the slot this time remains to be seen. 

With contributions from Frank Chaparro.