Although bitcoin reclaimed the $18,000 mark at first, the asset failed to sustain its run and has dipped below it. Most alternative coins have suffered in the past 24 hours as well, as Ethereum has dived beneath $550.
Bitcoin has suffered in the past several days. Following the relatively calm weekend when it traded around $19,000, the asset nosedived to $17,650 a few days later.
The cryptocurrency bounced off initially from that low and took back the $18,000 level. In fact, BTC spiked to an intraday high of $18,600 before getting rejected. In the following hours, the bitcoin bulls failed to sustain the run, and the asset dumped once again beneath $18,000.
As of writing these lines, BTC still struggles at about $17,800. The technical indicators suggest that the next significant support level lies at $17,180. Should bitcoin break below it, the cryptocurrency could drop all the way to $16,340.
If BTC is to return to its Q4 2020 bull run, it would have to overcome the resistance levels at $18,500 and $18,800 before potentially challenging the psychological $19,000 mark.
Most alternative coins have declined in value in the past 24 hours even more than bitcoin. Ethereum has dropped by about 4% and struggles with maintaining above $540.
Ripple is down by over 3% and trades at $0.55. Bitcoin Cash (-3%), Binance Coin (-3%), and Polkadot (-3%) have also lost similar percentages in a day.
The most significant losers from the top ten are Chainlink (-5.5%), Cardano (-6.5%), and Litecoin (-6.6%).
Further losses are evident from lower- and mid-cap altcoins. Uniswap leads this adverse ranking with a 9.5% decline. Aave (-9%), Ren (-9%), THETA (-8%), Hedera Hashgraph (-8%), NEM (-8%), and Reserve Rights (-7.5%) follow.
The cryptocurrency market cap recovered some of the losses yesterday but has dipped even more since then and displays $526 billion. This means a decline of $20 billion in a day and $50 billion in a week.
