Bitcoin (BTC) remained firmly within the range it has held for most of the past two weeks, trading as low as around $27,200 and as low as $28,400 on Monday.
The largest cryptocurrency by market cap recently traded at $27,500, down over 2% from 24 hours ago. BTC is up almost 70% for the year after a buoyant first quarter that saw investors become more optimistic about inflation and other macroeconomic issues.
Still, BTC’s price has failed to scale above $29,000 for more than a few fleeting minutes over the past few weeks as investors ponder bank failures and fresh economic indicators that have been inconclusive.
“Bitcoin needs a bullish catalyst to break above $30,000, but until a significant use case argument is made, prices could consolidate around the mid-$20,000s,” wrote Edward Moya, Senior Market Analyst at forex market maker Oanda, in an email.
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, also slipped 0.2% to around $1,787 on Monday. ETH’s price surged 48% in the first quarter. Among other altcoins, meme-based Dogecoin (DOGE) — long backed by Twitter CEO Elon Musk — surged 16.5% after the social media platform changed its logo from the usual blue bird to the Dogecoin symbol. Payment processor Alchemy Pay’s native ACH token is up 7% after it was reported Monday that the company received $10 million in investment from market maker DWF Labs with a $400 million valuation.
Meanwhile, market liquidity has continued to deteriorate. Monday’s report by crypto data firm Kaiko found that both the 2% market depth of BTC and ETH, a metric used to assess liquidity conditions, have fallen by 50% and 41%, respectively, since the collapse of Alameda Research, the trading arm of crypto exchange FTX is November – a so-called “Alameda gap”. The ongoing decline followed exchange Binance’s announcement that it was curtailing its fee-free trading program, Kaiko said.
“Both assets (Bitcoin and Ether) have suffered in the wake of the FTX collapse and banking crisis as fewer market makers are injecting liquidity into the order books,” the report reads.
Stock markets were mixed on Monday. The S&P 500 closed up 0.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 0.9%. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.2%.
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