The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that it is a rough time to be an altcoin. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that altcoins -- a catchall for most cryptocurrencies except bitcoin and ether -- have been harpooned in lawsuits filed by U.S. regulators against exchanges Binance and Coinbase last week, hammering the prices of the tokens. Over 50 cryptocurrencies worth over $100-billion (U.S.) in total and making up about 10 per cent of the overall market, are now viewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission watchdog as securities, according to CCData. Among major players, for example, solana, polygon and cardano have sunk between 23 per cent and 32 per cent. "Security classifications would affect all U.S. crypto exchanges, leading to a forced closing of various altcoin pairs," said Vetle Lunde, senior analyst at K33 Research. Whether U.S. courts accept the SEC's classification remains to be seen, but the impacts are already being felt. Robinhood Markets has already said it will remove solana, cardano and polygon from its platform. Market participants say other exchanges may follow suit. That would make it more expensive both for individual tokens to operate and for crypto exchanges to list them.