Altcoins Plummet as Bitcoin Fights to Stay Above $80K

Bitcoin Recovers After Weekend Dip to 5-Week Low

Bitcoin experienced a turbulent weekend, dipping to a five-week low of $79,100 on Saturday before staging a significant recovery. The broader cryptocurrency market largely mirrored this volatility, with many altcoins registering substantial weekly declines.

The past week proved challenging for the primary cryptocurrency, punctuated by only a brief upward movement on Wednesday. Following the release of CPI and PPI data last week, Bitcoin saw a sharp decline, falling just below the $80,000 mark. However, it managed a swift rebound to $82,600. Despite a subsequent rejection, buyers successfully defended the $80,500 level.

The start of the new trading week saw another attempt to breach $83,000, but Bitcoin was once again met with resistance and retreated to $81,000. A sudden price surge on Tuesday, followed by a more pronounced rally on Wednesday, propelled the cryptocurrency towards $85,000, a level not seen in approximately two weeks.

However, prevailing bearish market sentiment reasserted itself, leading to a rapid downturn. Bitcoin first fell below $83,000 and then plunged to under $81,000. It remained in this range until the end of the week, before a sudden drop to $79,100 on Saturday across most exchanges. Noted critic Peter Schiff was quick to predict a further fall to $75,000, a forecast that Bitcoin promptly defied by jumping back to $80,900.

Currently, Bitcoin is facing resistance at this level and is engaged in a battle to maintain its position above $80,000. Its market capitalization has decreased to $1.610 trillion according to CoinMarketCap, while its dominance over altcoins remains steady at 60%.

Altcoin Market Sees Significant Losses

The weekly performance charts present a grim picture for most altcoins. Ethereum has fallen by nearly 4%, now trading around $2,330. XRP continues to trade below $1.30, and Solana (SOL) has dropped to $101 following a 3% decline. More severe losses were observed in cryptocurrencies such as NEAR (-11.4%), Rain (RAIN) (-12.7%), SingularityNET (TAO) (-8%), Quant (QNT) (-8.6%), BitTorrent (BTW) (-28%), Avalanche (AVAX) (-10.5%), Polkadot (DOT) (-8.3%), Aave (AAVE) (-12%), and Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) (-13.5%).

In contrast, Pepe (PEPE) has seen a remarkable surge of 13%. While Monero (XMR) experienced a 15% drop in the last 24 hours, it has recorded a 25% gain over the week. Other cryptocurrencies like Zcash (ZEC) and Binance Coin (BNB) are also showing slight positive movement.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen below $2.7 trillion on CoinMarketCap, reflecting a 0.4% decrease from the previous day.