Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies moved mostly lower on Monday, with Bitcoin unable to mount a fresh attack on the $9,000 level it briefly breached last week.
Cryptocurrencies overall were moving lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $272.02 billion at the time of writing, compared to $276.88 billion on Sunday.
Bitcoin traded down 3.1% to $8,527.8 on the Investing.com Index as of 9:04 AM ET (13:04 GMT), off the 2019 high of $9,045.9 reached last Thursday.
After tumbling from record highs close to $20,000 reached in December 2017, the digital currency spent most of the first quarter of 2019 hovering below the $4,000 level before regaining momentum early last month. The largest digital currency by market cap is up 130% year-to-date.
The rally brought back memories of the crypto-craze seen in 2017. The Wall Street Journal noted that a couple of call options on Bitcoin had been written at strike prices of $50,000 and $36,000, trades that only pay off if bitcoin surges past those levels. It noted that a “small number of wildly optimistic bets in bitcoin options don’t mean its current surge will continue."
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recommended keeping an eye on the $8,000-$9,000 range.
“A break below Thursday’s low and the 20-day moving average at $8,000 would confirm the reversal and open the door for a retracement back toward $7,000,” he said. “While not the likeliest scenario at this point, a close back above $9,000 would signal that bulls have weathered the storm and clear the way for a likely continuation toward the widely-watched $10,000 level next.”
In other digital currency trading, XRP rose 0.7% to $0.44728, Ethereum dropped 3.3% to $262.95, while Litecoin traded down 2.9% to $112.5.