Bitcoin (BTC) bulls have been trying their best to break above the 200-day moving average trendline since the start of October, only to be rejected again this weekend.
It marks the third such rejection at $28,000 since the start of the month, with the bears successfully keeping the world’s largest cryptocurrency below this key metric.
The BTC/USD pair managed to briefly surpass the 28k mark on Sunday before getting knocked back to $27,900 by the session’s close.
Bitcoin was pushed even lower this morning, marking a sluggish start to the week.
US inflation will be the key event anticipated by traders this week. Though the year-on-year rate continues to fall, last week’s surprisingly strong jobs data threw a spanner in the works for the US disinflation story.
Any upside inflation surprise could reinforce the higher-for-longer interest narrative, causing downward pressure on bitcoin and other risk-on asset classes.
Bitcoin is around 8% lower over six months – Source: tradingview.com
Second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) continues to underperform against bitcoin, with weekend losses continuing to feed into a bearish Monday.
While bitcoin continues to test the 200-day trend line, ether remains substantially below it, with a spot price of $1,621 at the time of writing.
The cryptocurrency markets continue to show signs of consolidation, with more and more interest gravitating to bitcoin at the sacrifice of the broader altcoin space.
Bitcoin dominance, which measures its market capitalisation against the entire cryptocurrency market, is poised to reclaim 51% for the first time in three months.
All constituents of the top-20 altcoin table, including BNB, Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano (ADA), are firmly in the red week on week.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at $1.09 trillion.