Bitcoin (BTC) rounded Monday’s session off 3% lower at US$27,120, with more downside seen this morning, pushing the BTC/USDT pair close to a flat US$27,000.
The pair dipped as low as US$26,500 in the intraday session on headwinds in the form of another regulatory threat to the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which has run afoul of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Though the pair quickly recovered, a bout of volatility should be expected as the market pontificates on the development.
With fiat on-ramps coming under renewed scrutiny, whether that’s toward Binance, Kraken or Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), there are concerns that it could lead to a decline in available market liquidity.
Panning out, BTC has entered the week-on-week red zone, which was inevitable given the benchmark cryptocurrency’s extraordinary gains in the past few weeks.
Bitcoin (BTC) faces new set of headwinds – Source: currency.com
Long-bitcoin liquidations have thus ramped up, with around US$41mln liquidated yesterday, according to Coinglass data.
On the bright side, bitcoin has shown remarkable resilience to macro pressures this year, from turmoil in the traditional finance sector to sustained interest rate hikes, but investors should brace for market uncertainty.
Ethereum saw an intraday low of US$1,690 on Monday before clawing back to close the session 3.3% lower at US$1,715.
Today’s price action has actually been comparatively bullish, adding 0.8% to US$1,730 at the time of writing.
Ripple keeps rallying
Payment token Ripple (XRP) continues to steam ahead, adding another 6% overnight to push week-on-week gains close to 30%.
Investors remain extremely bullish on developer Ripple Labs’ ability to secure victory in the long-running SEC vs Ripple Labs unregistered securities litigation.
As the market waits nervously for a ruling, XRP whales keep buying the rumour… just don’t be surprised when they sell the news.
Litecoin (LTC), similarly a payment token, remains 11% higher week on week, while Cardano (ADA) has also managed to outperform the market with gains of 5%.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation fell 2% overnight to US$1.13tn, while total value locked in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space also dipped 2% to US$48.3bn.
Read more on Proactive Investors AU
