bitcoin reversed gains made earlier in Asia, piercing nascent recovery rallies in major alternative cryptocurrencies.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value fell below $88,000, after having surpassed $90,000, CoinDesk data shows. Main altcoins included ether solarium and They also returned to their dances. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) retreated to 2,726, roughly where it was in early Asia before rising to 2,789.
The decline is consistent with weakness in stock index futures. At the time of writing, futures linked to Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index were trading 0.5% lower on the day, pointing to a cautious start to trading.
According to Wintermute, BTC and Nasdaq share a strong positive correlation that becomes more pronounced during Nasdaq downtrends.
The pullback led traders to slightly reduce their leveraged bets. Data from Coinglass shows that cumulative open interest in globally listed futures decreased to around 533,000 BTC from the 540,000 BTC seen today. Open interest had increased from 524,000 BTC when the bitcoin price rose to $90,000.
Recently, the cryptocurrency has tended to underperform during US time, according to Laser Digital.
“An interesting trend to note has been the clear underperformance during the US time zone (both BTC and ETH fell over 3% in US hours. [last week] offset by strength during Asian time) likely driven by selling pressure coming from the year-end tax collection flow as cryptocurrencies have significantly underperformed among global assets this year,” Laser Digital analysts wrote in a research note on Monday.
John Glover, Elliott Wave expert and chief investment officer at cryptocurrency lender Ledn, signaled a bullish outlook.
“Bitcoin’s price chart looks very promising for higher prices in the future, but less certainty in the near term. I continue to expect the market to trade sideways to slightly lower in the coming weeks/months, and am looking to add long positions between $71k and $84k,” Glover told CoinDesk in an email.
