Bitcoin Fails To Hold On To Gains, Falls Below $13,500 Level

Bitcoin’s (BTC) upward march lost momentum with the apex cryptocurrency trading below the $13,500 mark at press time — well below the $14,000 highs it touched over the weekend.

What Happened: The cryptocurrency ran up nearly 28% in October, which is the biggest single-month gain for Bitcoin since April this year, as per CoinMarketCap data.

Other major altcoins were in the red as well, with Ethereum down 5.72% and XRP falling 3.90%.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Chainlink (LINK), Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR) fell 7.38%, 12.40%, 7.29%, and 11.90%, respectively. 

Stablecoin Tether’s (USDT) 24-hour volume stood at $49.03 billion, while Bitcoin’s volume was $32 billion in the same period.

"If we consider overbought daily technicals plus failure to beat the 2019 high resistance and a risk-off backdrop, it is perfectly reasonable to anticipate the possibility for a healthy decline ahead,” Joel Kruger, strategist at LMAX Digital, told CoinDesk.

Ashish Singhal, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CoinSwitch, attributed the fall to the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3 and also to “small corrections.”

Why It Matters: “Unless the market can establish above $14,000, there is a risk that rally stalls here in favor of a healthy retreat,” according to Kruger. 

On Monday, PayPal Holdings, Inc PYPL CEO Daniel Schulman said the company's third-quarter earnings conference that its cryptocurrency foray is “just the beginning of the opportunities.”

PayPal announced last month it would allow its users to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies. 

Prior to that Jack Dorsey-led Square Inc SQ had announced a $50 million investment in Bitcoin. 

Price Action: At Press time, Bitcoin traded 1.63% lower at $13,453.53, Ethereum was lower 4.47% at $375.72, Ripple traded 7.23% lower at $0.23, while Chainlink fell 12.49% to $10.28.

Photo by Andre Francois McKenzie on Unsplash