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(Kitco News) - Cryptocurrency prices were down in trading on Monday as the announced takeover of First Republic Bank by JPMorgan led to volatility across all financial markets and a spike in investors' concerns about the state of the global financial system.
Stocks initially started off the day on solid footing, with the major indices seeing green in the early trading hours before reversing course and heading lower into the market close. When it was all said and done, the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all finished Monday in the red, down 0.04%, 0.14%, and 0.11%, respectively.
Data provided by TradingView shows that the downward pressure on Bitcoin (BTC) began late on Sunday and ramped up in the early hours on Monday as Bears broke below support at $29,000 and are now looking to break the back of support at $28,000.
BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The ramp-up in pressure late on Sunday led to May Bitcoin futures prices trending weaker in early U.S. trading on Monday, according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff, who called the price action “choppy and sideways.”
“The bulls and bears are on a neutral overall near-term technical playing field,” Wyckoff said. “The direction in which prices move above or below the resistance and support lines seen on the chart will very likely be the direction of the next sustained trending price move.”
May Bitcoin Futures 1-day chart. Source: Jim Wyckoff
BTC’s price action has largely played out as predicted last week by analysts at Eight Global, who noted the possibility of an ABC correction in Bitcoin that could see the top crypto potentially fall to a low of $25,300.
“The bottom of the A wave seemingly has come in at around 27.2k, from where we got the B wave, seemingly topping out at around 30k,” the analyst wrote. “This brings my conservative target for the C wave to 25.3k, after which I would expect some consolidation throughout summer before the market picks a direction.”
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Eight Global
Barring any significant black swan event, Eight Global suggested that BTC could potentially rise toward $38,000 later in the year but said that “is a lot of speculation at this point in time.”
“The U.S. and EU economies are still heading towards a recession which, in my opinion, will make itself visible in stock market performance later this year,” Eight Global wrote. “The question that begs to be answered is whether crypto, specifically BTC, can perform to the upside while stock markets enter another risk-off phase, especially with on- off-ramping restrictions in the U.S. I doubt it, but depending on how the charts develop, my opinion may change.”
Carnage for the altcoin market
Radicle (RAD) and UMA (UMA) were the only tokens in the top 200 to record gains on the day, increasing by 13.8% and 7.75%, respectively, while the rest of the field was plunged deep into the red.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
The NFT marketplace Blur was the hardest hit, with the price of BLUR down 13.34% on the day, followed by a 12.23% loss for Internet Computer (ICP) and a 9.32% loss for MX Token (MX).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.15 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 46.5%.
