Bitcoin Slips Below $29K, Ethereum, Dogecoin Turn Red: Analyst Says Apex Coin 'Will Struggle Here' Until This Happens

Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD were seen trading lower at 10:20 p.m. EDT as the global cryptocurrency market cap slipped 1.9%, to $1.2 trillion.

See Also: Best Business Crypto Accounts

What Happened: The downturn in the cryptocurrency market mirrored stocks that declined on dismal earnings. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed lower by 0.6% and 0.8%, respectively, on Thursday. Stock futures were seen flat at the time of publishing.

Edward Moya, OANDA Senior Market Analyst, said that Bitcoin lost the $29,000 level on Thursday as "traders process the news that Coinbase might end up leaving the U.S. market if they don't get any regulatory clarity or if they don’t like the upcoming regulatory decisions."

"If Coinbase leaves the U.S. market, a lot of U.S. traders will be gone because they probably won't feel confident trading on decentralized exchanges, which means the global crypto market will shrink significantly."

"Bitcoin will struggle here until we have any regulatory clarity, which means prices seem poised to drift lower," wrote Moya, in a note seen by Benzinga.

Cryptocurrency trader Michaël van de Poppe noted that Bitcoin's "next area of importance is $28,500 after failing to "break" $29,300.

Justin Bennett said he still favors Ethereum for any shorts that are set up. The cryptocurrency trader questioned the thesis of an altcoin season in a tweet on Thursday.

On-chain data firm Glassnode pointed to the Net Unrealized Profit/Loss indicator, which is the difference between Relative Unrealized Profit and Relative Unrealized Loss.

It said that the current NUPL value of 0.36 means the market is at a very "neutral level" with 55.8% of days recording a higher reading and 44.2% recording a lower reading.

"This is coincident with past cycles where a transition between a bear and bull markets have taken place. It also suggests that the market is neither heavily discounted (like it was at $16k), nor heavily overvalued (like at the $60k+ peak)," said Glassnode.

Market intelligence platform Santiment said a pair of Ethereum addresses moved 150,000 ETH (worth $297 million) after holding the coins since late 2018.

The platform said that the whales have "aided in creating one of the largest dormant circulation spikes in the past year."

Read Next: Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Whale Awakens After 9 Years Of Dormancy, Transfers $60M BTC