Bitcoin dropped below $29,000 for the first time in over a month as the recent exorbitance over ETFs and a more favorable regulatory outlook eases.
The largest digital-asset by market value fell as much as 4.2% to $28,865, the least since June 21. Bitcoin is up around 75% this year. Most other tokens were also lower on Monday, with recent high-flyer XRP down about 7% and Solana off 8%.
“After a sharp rally spurred by spot ETF excitement, Bitcoin has consolidated for over a month around $30,000 as the market awaits incremental information regarding the probability of the myriad of filings coming to fruition,” said Spencer Hallarn, a derivatives trader at crypto investment firm GSR.
The recent jump in Bitcoin coincided with a raft of filings for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the US, driven in large part by an application by Wall-Street heavyweight BlackRock Inc. XRP had almost doubled after a federal judge said two weeks ago that the token wasn’t a security when offered to the public on exchanges.
“In the wake of the XRP ruling, the associated enthusiasm for [altcoins] and uptick in listings on exchanges has served to reverse the focusing effect of capital into the majors that had occurred over the last few months and has contributed to the loss of price momentum,” Hallarn said.
Dogecoin was the exception among larger market value tokens, gaining as much as 7.8% after Elon Musk has changed Twitter’s logo, replacing its signature blue bird with a stylized X. Musk also added Dogecoin’s ticker logo to his bio, spurring speculation the memecoin will play a larger role in the rebranded company.
Worldcoin, the token of the crypto project co-founded by OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, rallied on its first day of trading as investors piled into the hype around artificial intelligence. The token jumped to as high as $3.58 from the initial price of $1.70, data compiled by CoinMarketCap showed.
Worldcoin, Altman’s eyeball-scanning crypto project uses a small device called an “orb” to scan people’s eyeballs in order to generate a a unique digital identity. That identity, or World ID, grants its holder “proof of personhood” in the Worldcoin parlance.
--With assistance from Sidhartha Shukla.
