Bitcoin nurses losses as momentum gauge flashes price warning

Bitcoin nursed a four-day drop of about 9 per cent, held back by a bout of risk aversion in global markets on jitters over tightening Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The largest crypto was little changed at $21,330 as of 7.40am in London on Monday. Ether and smaller tokens like Avalanche and Cardano slipped back.

Faith in the global equity rebound from June’s bear-market lows is starting to crack in part because of the Fed’s commitment to raising interest rates further and drain liquidity. US equity futures were on the back foot Monday and that kept the pressure on crypto given the correlation between the two.

“Bitcoin’s fortunes, at least in the short to medium term, continue to be hitched to the wagon of other long-duration growth assets such as technology stocks,” Jamie Douglas Coutts, senior market structure analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a note.

An indicator known as the moving average convergence divergence — MACD — also flashed a warning sign. The MACD has turned negative, which for some technical analysts is a sign Bitcoin may continue to come under pressure.