Crypto has a bad case of the Mondays, Bitcoin dips below 7,000
- Crypto market continues global decline, broad market down over 50% since the start of 2018.
- Smaller cryptocurrencies following Bitcoin's lead, replicating losses on charts.
- Markets find a brief reprieve, BTC bounces from 6,650.00.
Cryptocurrencies have continued the broad-market rout that has seen Bitcoin shed over 60% of its value since the beginning of the year, dropping below 7,000 USD for the first time since last November. BTC managed to find a small bounce near the end of the trading day and is currently back up to the 7,200 area.
The broad-base run on cryptocurrencies that has led several off-beat crypto news sites to dub the first month of the year 'Black January' has continued, with Bitcoin shedding over 60% of its market value since the mid-December high of 19,891.00. The crypto selloff has seen fellow cryptos Ethereum fall 48% to 740.00 and Ripple fall to 0.7240, a staggering 78% decline from its January high of 3.3000.
Market-wide pressure on cryptocurrencies continues to increase, with Chinese authorities clamping down on exchanges, stepping up enforcement of the country's outright ban on cryptocurrency trading and employing their "Great Firewall" to squeeze crypto activity out of their borders. Restrictions on the purchase of cryptocurrencies using credit cards is also hurting the market, as securities regulators globally begin to hand out cease-and-desist letters and injuctions against crypto shops with a shadier touch to them, such as DavorCoin, with the Texas State Securities Board effectively shutting down the exchange, citing DavosCoin's lending program being a dressed-up fraudulent practice by allowing customers to use other cryptos to purchase their in-house cryptocurrency, dubbed DavorCoin; this exchange practice falls under the TSSB's definition of an unregistered security.
Crypto traders could use some goodwill, as the structure of the crypto marketplace continues to lose the battle against financial instutions turning their backs on blockchain technology.
Bitcoin Technicals
An uptrend in Bitcoin's tumbling value could face immediate swing resistance at 8,250.00, and 9,950.00 just above that. If BTC can manage to hang on to today's bounce, then the turnaround area near 6,650.00 could act a support floor for the blockchain coin.
Author
Joshua Gibson
FXStreet
Joshua joins the FXStreet team as an Economics and Finance double major from Vancouver Island University with twelve years' experience as an independent trader focusing on technical analysis.
