The global cryptocurrency market cap edged up 0.6% to $1.64 trillion as major coins traded in the green at the time of publishing.
Bitcoin moved between a low of $42,298.30 and a high of $43,494.25 on Monday. High costs of borrowing are impacting risk assets after the Federal Reserve maintained the interest rates between 5.25% and 5.5% at the end of last month.
| Cryptocurrency | Gains +/- | Price (Recorded at 10.58 p.m. EST) |
| Bitcoin BTC/USD | +0.34% | $42,806.39 |
| Ethereum ETH/USD | +1.04% | $2,315.33 |
| Dogecoin DOGE/USD | +0.38% | $0.08 |
This month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell admitted that inflation was not "dead" and that the U.S. central bank would wait for "more good data" before taking a call on cutting rates. His comments poured cold water over expectations for a rate cut in March.
Major coins were seen moving in tandem with equities at the time of publishing as U.S. stock futures were in positive territory. However, during Monday's session, the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.2% to 15,597.68. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.7% to 38,380.12 the same day.
Top Gainer (24-Hours)
| Cryptocurrency | Gains +/- | Price (Recorded at 10.58 p.m. EST) |
| Ethereum Name Service (ENS) | +13% | $20.74 |
| Sui (SUI) | +8.9% | $1.60 |
| Optimism (OP) | +6.7% | $3.20 |
As investors' expectations of rate cuts diminish, the dollar has received a shot in the arm. The greenback surged to 11-week highs on Monday. The dollar index, a measure of the currency’s strength against a basket of six other currencies, rose to its highest level since Nov. 14. At the time of publishing, it was down marginally by 0.03% at 104.02.
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Analyst Takes
Cryptocurrency trader Michaël van de Poppe is hopeful that the following two years will see a "massive bull run" for both Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Van de Poppe shared his "gameplans" for Ethereum on X, formerly Twitter.
"The Dencun upgrade is taking place on the final testnet in the next few days," said the trader. "Most likely it will have a positive impact on the price of Ethereum, but I’d rather want to see a flip of 0.06 for confirmation or a sweep of the lows."
The eagerly awaited Dencun upgrade, also known as Cancun-Deneb, is set to enhance Ethereum (ETH) in Q1 2024, prioritizing scalability, efficiency, and security. Notably, EIP-4844 (proto-danksharding) within the upgrade aims to lower gas fees on layer two (L2) transactions for Ethereum end users.
Chartist Ali Martinez touched on Chainlink (LINK), a coin that defied Monday's cryptocurrency downturn. He said that LINK faces "stiff resistance" between $19.40 and $20.03 where 5,330 addresses are sitting on 8.59 million LINK.
"If #LINK can break through this supply wall, the next critical area of resistance is around $26.87, representing a 38% price increase!"
It should be noted that LINK has shot up nearly 27% over a week and on Monday, it gained 1.6% and hovered at $18.96 at the time of publishing.
Market analytics platform Santiment noted that the cryptocurrency market is undergoing a bearish sentiment and is deviating from the usual growth observed since the bull cycle started in October. The platform said that major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano and Solana are displaying a more negative sentiment than historical averages.
Santiment said this is the first time in six months that this has happened and when traders become concerned and show fear, uncertainty and doubt, it is a signal of an "impending bounce."
"Markets historically move in the direction of the crowd’s least expected direction, making a rise catch many #short traders off guard."
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