Bitcoin and Ethereum moved sideways at the start of the week as investors’ confidence languished on three-week-long stagnant prices.
Bitcoin rose 0.1% to US$19,157, while its biggest rival by market value, Ethereum, declined 0.7% to US$1,056.
Naeem Aslam, Avatrade chief market analyst, commented: “The cryptocurrency king, Bitcoin, had another painful weekend as the prices continue to trade below the US$20,000 price mark fuelling further concerns among investors and traders that the path of least resistance is skewed to the downside.
“Some investors are still very much confident that the current rout in Bitcoin prices is [...] short-lived and it is possible that Bitcoin will be much higher as compared to now towards the end of the year.”
Bitcoin has been floating in the vicinity of its US$20,000 support level for almost three weeks now, with Ethereum much the same at US$1,000.
This indicates that most of those who have kept money in digital currencies are HODLers (hold on for dear life), as they do not want to realise such significant losses and pray the prices have hit bottom, analysts said.
The small price movement echoed that of many global markets on Friday, with crypto’s most closely correlated index, the Nasdaq, climbing under 1%.
Meanwhile, crypto’s biggest sceptics held an anti-crypto conference on Sunday amid its latest bear market.
Amongst the risers, TerraClassicUSD and THORChain stole the headlines, up 11% and 10% respectively.
NEM and Synthetix were the standout fallers, albeit by a much smaller amount than the climbers, down 5.2% and 5.7% respectively.