Leading cryptocurrencies traded flat Sunday ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech on the direction of interest rate cuts in the coming months.

What Happened: Bitcoin spiked above $66,000 during the afternoon hours but started to descend as the evening progressed, falling as low as $65,121 overnight. Ethereum also encountered choppy behavior in the $2,600 region

Bitcoin gained more than 10% in September, its best performance in a month with a historical average loss of 3.47%. The rally has been broadly fueled by the central bank's aggressive 0.5% rate cut earlier this month.

Total cryptocurrency liquidations exceeded $108 million in the last 24 hours, with long liquidations accounting for 60%.

The number of bearish bets for the cryptocurrency spiked dramatically vis à vis bullish long bets, according to the Long/Short Ratio.

The market sentiment continued to be one of "Greed," according to the popular Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index.

Top Gainers (24-Hours)

The global cryptocurrency stood at $2.29 trillion in the last 24 hours, following a marginal decrease of 0.77% in the last 24 hours.

Stock futures were little changed Sunday overnight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures was up 0.06% at 9:15 p.m. EDT.  Futures tied to the S&P 500 gained 0.12%, while Nasdaq 100 Futures rose 0.15%.

Blue-chip indices clocked fresh highs Friday, well-positioned to end September on a positive note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.8% month-to-date, while the broad-based index S&P 500 gained 1.25%. 

Investors would closely watch the unemployment data for September, slated to be released on Friday. Additionally, Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech on Monday would provide clues on the monetary easing policy.

See More: Best Cryptocurrency Scanners

Analyst Notes: Popular on-chain analyst Ali Martinez issued a massively bullish long-term price projection for Bitcoin.

"Current price action is just noise! If Bitcoin is truly forming a cup-and-handle pattern, the long-term bullish target could range between $194,000 and $352,000!" the cryptocurrency expert said.

Martinez had earlier underscored that the final quarter typically witnesses much higher gains if King Crypto closes in the green in September. As of this writing, BTC was up more than 10% in the month.

Noted on-chain analytics firm Santiment stated that the market's expectations needed to be tempered for Bitcoin to hit new highs.

"There are currently 1.8 bullish posts toward BTC for every 1 bearish post. Markets historically always move in the opposite direction of the crowd’s expectations," the firm remarked.

Photo by Avi Rozen on Shutterstock

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