Washington DC - The volatile cryptocurrency market took a dive last week in a devastating crash that wiped out tech dreams and dollar signs in one fell swoop.

This week, big name cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin dropped like a rock in value. The financial crash was so hefty that the New York Times and price tracker CoinMarketCap calculated a loss of $300 billion in mere days.

The price drop took Bitcoin back to its early 2021 price, dipping below $30,000, and wiped out Ethereum's gains from the past year as well.

The plummeting figures didn't stop there. Coinbase, one of the biggest crypto platforms, reported a loss of $430 million and over two million active traders since the beginning of this year.

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US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said during a congressional hearing, "We really need a regulatory framework [for crypto].

"In the last couple of days, we’ve had a real-life demonstration of the risks."

This isn't the first time cryptocurrencies have tanked in value. In 2018, for example, Bitcoin lost around 80% of its value.

This time around, a so-called stablecoin, which is a type of cryptocurrency tied to a real-world currency, kicked off the crash.

Usually, the currencies are a one-to-one match, where one coin equals one US dollar. But on May 13, the stablecoin TerraUSD left its one dollar value in the dust, and dropped to just 13 cents.

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The plunge in value happened after the cryptocurrency Luna, which helped fix the price of TerraUSD at $1, started a brutal decline on May 10.

The blockchains that handle Luna and TerraUSD transactions have since been halted. Currently, TerraUSD is down to nine cents, while Luna is worth just a tiny fraction of one cent.

The week's crash shows that cryptocurrencies are still very risky to trade.