Bitcoin continues to struggle with extremely low trading volumes.
According to data compiled by CryptoQuant and shared by CNBC, volumes held on the major exchange have dipped to five-year lows, driven by a lack of enthusiasm among retail investors.
This may partially be down to major institutions buying huge quantities of the world’s largest cryptocurrency in vain hopes of launching their spot-bitcoin ETFs.
Yet sluggish price action and historically low volatility support the narrative that investors are cautious about entering the bitcoin markets due to adverse macroeconomic conditions.
For the past 11 days, the BTC/USDT pair has closed with the $26,000 and $26,200 range, ever since a 7.3% pummelling on the 17th of August.
Weekend trades (a long weekend for UK readers) showed negligible price action, while open interest on the futures market remains compressed at $7.7 billion.
Bitcoin fails to find buyers – Source: tradingview.com
A the time of writing, BTC/USDT was swapping for $26,039, with Binance’s order book suggesting support lines at $25,800 and $25,000 flat.
Ethereum (ETH) has been trending downwards, though appears to be stabilising around the $1,650 price point, just under 1.2% lower week on week.
The ETH/USDT pair has substantial buying support at the $1,550 mark.
Despite the underwhelming price action in the benchmark cryptoassets, a few winners have emerged in the altcoin space.
Binance’s BNB token, Polkadot (DOT), Polygon (MATIC) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) have all added low single digits to their market capitalisations in the past seven days, while Toncoin (TON) has surged more than 10%.
As a result, bitcoin dominance remains below the 50% line.
Global cryptocurrency market cap currently stands at $1.05 trillion, roughly on par compared to this time last week.
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