WEEKLY WATCH - Crypto Market’s Recent Momentum Fizzles Out

Bitcoin and Altcoins experience a slight downturn as a trend of profit-taking among Bitcoin holders has led to a loss of momentum in the market.

The cryptocurrency market, which recently experienced a surge pushing Bitcoin’s price to $43,000 and the global market cap to over $1.61 trillion, seems to be losing momentum as Bitcoin holders begin to cash in their profits.

Bitcoin (BTC) has kicked off the new trading week on a somewhat bearish note, shedding 1.8% over the past seven days. Despite trading above $41,000 throughout the week, Bitcoin is currently hovering just above this mark, trading at $41,269. It is anticipated to continue this sideways movement in the coming days as investor enthusiasm appears to be diminishing.

This trend was mirrored by Ether (ETH), which also began trading above $2,100. However, ETH has lost 3.7% over the past week and is currently trading around $2,155, down from its Friday high of $2,316 on December 15th. Ethereum has also racked up $13.52 million in gas fees in the last 24 hours alone.

Altcoins are also experiencing a pullback, with SOL falling to $70, and both Cardano and Avalanche seeing more than a 5% drop. Binance Coin has slipped 1.5% to just under $240, with Ripple, Dogecoin, Polkadot, and Polygon also experiencing daily losses. Solana has seen a 5% decrease, bringing it down to just under $70.

Coinglass data reveals that approximately $103.5 million worth of token-tracked futures have been liquidated in the past 12 hours. Interestingly, $95 million of these liquidations were long positions, or bets on rising prices. Of the $33 million worth of Bitcoin liquidations, $29 million were long Bitcoin positions.

The overall market cap has dipped to $1.60 trillion, down from $1.58 trillion the previous Monday (December 11). DeFi’s total volume is currently $6.98 billion, accounting for 13.30 percent of the total market’s 24-hour volume. In terms of stablecoins, the total volume stands at $47.06 billion, making up 89.65 percent of the total 24-hour market volume. According to CoinMarketCap, the overall market fear and greed index is currently at ‘Greed’ with 70 points (out of 100), down from around 80 (‘Extreme Greed’) just last week.