BitcoinBTCUSD –1.55% and other cryptocurrencies traded lower Monday after traders took profits in the world’s largest cryptocurrency after it briefly touched $25,000 over the weekend.
Bitcoin has fallen 3.1% over the past 24 hours to $24,051. The cryptocurrency traded above $25,000 on Sunday for the first time since mid-June. Its performance over the past week has been strong, rising more than 4% as U.S. inflation slowed in July, taking some pressure off the Federal Reserve which has been raising interest rates to slow down the economy.
Bitcoin and its peers should, in theory, trade independently of mainstream finance, but they have proved to be largely correlated to other risk-sensitive assets like stocks. The S&P 500 jumped 3.3% last week as investors have begun to entertain thoughts that the Fed may be able to engineer a soft landing for the U.S. economy.
But U.S. stock futures pointed to a weaker start for Wall Street on Monday following a surprise rate cut from China after data showed a weakening of retail sales and factory output in the world’s second-largest economy.
EtherETHEUR –2.75% , the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency and the token underpinning the Ethereum blockchain network, fell 5% to $1,907. It briefly traded above $2,000 over the weekend for the first time since the end of May. Ether rose sharply last week after it passed its last test before a major upgrade.
Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, mostly fell Monday. Solana was down 7% and Cardano ADAUSD –2.98% tumbled 6.4%. Dogecoin DOGEUSD –7.09% was down 2.5% but Shiba Inu SHIBUSD –7.08% advanced 1.5%.
