Market value of all digital currencies falls $5 billion
Bitcoin prices moved lower on Monday, extending losses from the weekend that saw the No.1 digital currency trade at its lowest level in more than a month.
On Monday, a single bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.51% was fetching $3,443.00, down 3.4% since Sunday’s level at 5 p.m. Eastern time on the Kraken exchange. Earlier in the session, the cryptocurrency reached an intraday low of $3,396.80, its lowest level since mid-December.
The weekend selloff dragged the total value of all cryptocurrencies to $113.2 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
What are analysts saying
Perennial crypto bull Tom Lee, head of Fundstrat Global Advisers, told Fox News over the weekend that 2018 was a disappointing year because bitcoin was unable to separate itself from the field of smaller digital currencies during the deep selloff.
“It’s a huge disappointment, it neither came in terms of price or calendar. Last year was a year where the crypto bubble was really adjusting because there were a lot of ICOs and flawed projects we thought bitcoin would sort of survive that. It didn’t. It got sold off with the rest of the market,” he said.
Lee had spent the best part of 2018 predicting the price of a single bitcoin would reach $25,000.
Altcoins are futures moving lower
Altcoins — the group of more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin — were sharply lower on Monday. Ether ETHUSD, +2.26% was off 8% at $103.87, Litecoin LTCUSD, +2.77% fell 6.6% to $30.41, Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD, +2.11% lost 10.8% to $108.50 and XRP XRPUSD, +1.40% was down 5.9% at 29 cents.
Bitcoin futures ended lower on Monday. The Cboe Global Markets February contract XBTG9, +0.59% closed down 4% at $3,380, while the CME Group February contract BTCG9, +0.30% lost 3.7% to $3,375.