Bitcoin Slides Below USD 20K Again, Ethereum Erases Daily Gains as Crypto Market Turns Red

The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), failed to continue higher today and moved below the USD 20,000 level again. The second most popular cryptoasset, ethereum (ETH), also dropped, erasing all its daily gains.

At 15:09 UTC, BTC trades at USD 19,776 and is down 2% in a day. The price briefly reached USD 20,500 earlier today. Meanwhile, ETH is now unchanged in a day, after dropping from almost USD 1,600 to USD 1,523.

Also, BTC is down 8% in a week, while ETH lost 6% of its value. All top altcoins also dropped in the past hour, erasing their daily gains.

"Near-term weakness continues to haunt numerous Bitcoin fundamentals, with prices faltering amidst minimal excess sell-side pressure. Investors who are spending appear to be taking advantage of any and all exit liquidity offered," crypto analytics firm Glassnode said in their latest report.

Meanwhile, Bendik Norheim Schei, Head of Research at Arcane Research, noted that BTC is now trading below its 200-week moving average (200WMA).

"This is not a common observation and buying below this well-known technical indicator has historically been a profitable strategy. However, it’s noteworthy that bitcoin has traded below the 200WMA for almost two months. We haven’t seen this before, and it can look like the important indicator has been flipped to resistance. This is undoubtedly a bearish technical signal," he wrote in a blog post today, stressing that BTC, at the time of writing, was still trading above its 2017 peak, which is acting as "a solid support level."

The Head of Research added that the next major support levels on a weekly scale could be around USD 16,000 or even between USD 11,000 - USD 12,000.

"So, where is the next support level? With the stock market clearly leading the way for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies this year, it’s dangerous to only consider technical levels when evaluating the bitcoin price," he concluded.