Investing.com – Bitcoin's move higher Monday was met with stern resistance, turning the popular crypto negative amid a lack of positive catalysts to reignite meaningful demand.
Bitcoin fell 2.84% to $7,503.6 on the Bitfinex exchange after testing a session high of $7,764.
Bitcoin's move higher to near $7,800 triggered resistance as it was a price level identified last week as the "next hurdle" in the popular crypto's recovery after it rebounded from a tumble close to $7,500.
Robert Sluymer, head of technical strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors Sluymer said last week bitcoin would have to sustain a rally above its next “hurdle” around the $7,800 price level, to validate the next phase of its recovery.
The waning demand for the popular crypto was characterised by its dwindling popularity on the internet as searches for the term "bitcoin" have dropped more than 75% since the beginning of this year, according to research from Google Trends. This was cited as a bad omen for bitcoin enthusiasts as the volume of searches for "bitcoin," is often viewed as a "proxy for potential new buyers," said Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.
Colas added that he "was not a fan of buying bitcoin at current [price] levels".
The total market cap of cryptocurrencies totalled about $337 billion, at the time of writing, to remain above last week's $329 billion.
Ripple XRP fell 2.25% to $0.64805 on the Poloniex exchange, while Ethereum fell 4.37% to $591.02.
Bitcoin Cash fell 6.53% to $1,093.50, while Litecoin fell 4.54% to $119.24.