146,671 ETH coins worth over $21 million at current prices have been moved from two unknown wallets to Kraken and Bitfinex.

The two batches of 100,000 ETHs and 46,671 ETHs, respectively, were moved in the last hour according to Whale Alert, a portal that transacts whale movement of coins and tokens.

Within the past hour, 960 BTC worth over $6 million was wired to OKEx.

As prices free fall, it is likely that these whales are seeking a reprieve, cutting their losses and would probably liquidate their holding.

The market is clearly on a meltdown and as prices of leading digital assets dump in light of an impending recession triggered by coronavirus which has already been declared a pandemic across the globe, panic-stricken investors are scrambling for the exits, liquidating millions and fleeing to safety.

Bitcoin is trading at $6,022 while ETH is down to $135 losing 24% and 28%, respectively.

Reflecting the dump, Bitcoin dominance has risen to 66% while the total cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $166 billion.

Specifically, this is a 26% drop in market capitalization revealing how damaging bears have been to a market that is still developing and massively potential.

In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin and the rest of the market has lost a whopping $58 billion.

As the crypto market bleeds, users have taken to Twitter to report that Ethereum is grinding to a halt thanks in part to the surge of liquidation and users fleeing to safety.

#ETH network congestion. Average time for confirmations 2680 seconds (44 minutes) https://t.co/a2U8vF3Q9P pic.twitter.com/nPENzWA4yH

— CZ Binance 🔶🔶🔶 (@cz_binance) March 12, 2020

With a throughput of 15 TPS at peak, Ethereum processing speed is low and therefore encounters scalability problems whenever there is high demand like now.

From DeFi and to thousands of dapps operating from the network, it appears that Ethereum network operators are now overwhelmed and there are transaction delays.

I love #Ethereum but is so slow when you really need it. There is definitely market opportunity/ validation for much faster #blockchain infrastructures such as @harmonyprotocol pic.twitter.com/lKPlptnk5c

— Nikolaos Kostopoulos (@NicKostopoulos) March 12, 2020

Another user also complained of high gas price:

When @Ethereum gas price is too high like just now, you get still gas costs discount on https://t.co/fLXva1SFRG because we burn gas token! #DeFi pic.twitter.com/Z8K0qGbzb4

— 1inch.exchange (@1inchExchange) March 12, 2020

Interestingly, this congestion is specific to Ethereum.

So far, there have been no complaints from Bitcoin or Litecoin users. Bitcoin, like Ethereum and Litecoin, use a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm and has a lower throughput that both Ethereum and Litecoin.