Fake news of a fatal car crash wiped out $4B in ethereum’s market value

The posts on 4chan surfaced several hours after the initial devaluation began (which not only affected, and still affects, ethereum, but virtually every other cryptocurrency too [0][1]) and was consequently not the root cause - though the subsequent reports might have influenced some traders. It is however easy to argue that ethereum, still very much in its infancy, rely almost entirely on Vitalik's continued well-being and leadership.

[0]: https://coinmarketcap.com/ [1]: https://bitcoinwisdom.com/

Dam $4B loss. At least ethereums real value of 0 is still unchanged

No it didn't. Crypto is down around the board, and as the last few dips in Bitcoin have shown, alts rise faster than BTC, and fall faster than BTC. This was no different.

I'd argue that bitcoin is still kind of a gateway currency for crypto in many countries. If you want to buy/sell crypto, you have to go through bitcoin.

With the crypto market being highly volatile and ethereum having seen such a huge gain this year i don't see much unusual with it going down a "bit".