Bitcoin Price Tumbles Below USD 6.7K, Major Altcoins Bleed More

After trading sideways during the weekend, the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC) took another hit in the early hours on Monday (UTC time), dropping below USD 6,700.

Read the updated version: Bitcoin Price Rallies 10%, Altcoins Move Higher

At pixel time (05:23 UTC), trades at c. USD 6,682. It’s down by 7% in the past 24 hours and by 22% in the past week, increasing its monthly loss to 30% and trimming annual gains to 80%.

BTC price chart:

However, bitcoin dominance, or the percentage of the total market capitalization, somewhat increased in the past 24 hours (to 65.5%), as major altcoins are down up to 8%. Only bitcoin cash (BCH) dropped less less than BTC (6%). Ethereum (ETH) crashed 10%, XRP – 8%.

The total market capitalization is down by 7%, to USD 184 billion.

On Friday, bitcoin dropped below USD 7,000 for the second time in 30 days as China’s central bank launched a fresh crackdown on cryptocurrency trading in Shanghai.

“Investors can find more joy in traditional markets without the aggressive volatility and opaque markets,” Jeffrey Halley, senior market strategist for Asia Pacific at Oanda Asia Pacific, told Bloomberg on Monday. “A sustained rally in Bitcoin would require a complete breakdown in the trade negotiations to happen as financial authorities across the world continue to circle the wagons against digital currencies.”

Meanwhile, George McDonaugh, Managing Director and Co-Founder of publicly listed cryptocurrency and blockchain investment firm KR1, said that the market is testing the lows, not because of China “but because we tested the highs.”

“It’s as simple as that. We essentially went from USD 5,000 dollars to USD 13,500 in 3 months and now, like the swing of a pendulum, the market wants to know where the bottom is again,” McDonaugh wrote in a comment sent to Cryptonews.com.

In his opinion we are in the early stages of a bull market.

“You’ll see that the bottom this time around is much higher than USD 5,000. We will find higher lows all the way back to all-time highs,” he added, stressing that in such a market there is really only one strategy: “buy when the market is testing a low, sell when the market is testing a high and hodl in between.”

Separately, BitOoda, a digital asset advisory firm, said that data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and BitMEX, CME and Bakkt, show that “the latest sell-off to be mostly weak longs getting out of the market pushing the price lower NOT new shorts coming in.”

“Because of this, we believe the sell-off shouldn’t be as long and as deep as previous bear markets. In general, we are wary of getting short here because we feel it might be a trap,” they added.