BTC back below $9,500 as cryptocurrency market continues slow decline

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The cryptocurrency market endured another relatively negative weekend with a slow decline across all major coins with some notable exceptions. Legacy Bitcoin (BTC) continued the slow decline that began on Wednesday and was trading at around $9400 at press time—around 20% down from its interim high of almost $12,000 and there appears to be selling pressure at the $9,000 mark. Although the expiration of the futures contract on Friday appeared to have contributed to the decline in price, other factors seem to be affecting BTC’s ability to recover to its previous highs which now seem to be a long way off.

Bitcoin Cash also suffered a precipitous decline and was trading at around $1,120 at press time, almost 30% down from its interim high of $1,500 also achieved last week. Although the currency seemed to be moving in inverse position to BTC in its initial stages with huge highs being achieved when BTC was down, this has not continued, and with every BTC decline, BCH declines too.

One of the few bright spots in all this carnage was Litecoin which saw a 9% rise over the weekend having dropped to a low of around $193 on Friday. It was trading at $210-220 at press time and looks poised to achieve a boost along this week if there is further good news especially with the Litepay announcement that took place recently.

Another positive mover was Ethereum Classic which also saw a price rise of around 10% over the weekend after having dropped considerably on Thursday and Friday. In fact, the ETC token was trading at around $35-36 on Sunday before dropping back to the $33 levels early Monday, indicating that it was struggling to hold on to its recent price levels. Ethereum had a relatively quiet weekend overall and settled at the $810-830 mark with no indication that it was going to break these price levels any time soon.

Of the other major cryptocurrencies, Ripple continued to disappoint and is now well below the $1 mark trading between $0.86 and $0.93 and it is seemingly stuck there for the foreseeable future. There does not seem to be the volume or the momentum for this currency to even approach its all-time highs reached last December and its market cap has continued shrinking to around $37 billion now, almost 150% down from its highest levels.

The other top 10 currencies with smaller market caps also saw some declines, with Stellar Lumens particularly disappointing. After reaching around $0.49 just a week ago, this currency has slumped almost 30% to the $0.33 level and appears to be falling further. Neo has also dropped to the low $110s after having traded at around $130 last week whilst Dash has once again dropped to below $600 and was trading at around $570 at press time. The latest correction has shaved another 30% off prices and the short term future appears rather bleak although an upside could also be in the offing.