Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, slipped further on Monday after falling 22% over the weekend, and had fallen nearly 5% on Monday as it fluctuated between $48,000 and $49,000.
Bitcoin last fell 1.1% to $48,900. Ether, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, also recorded a steady decline, with crypto down another 3.1% to $4,070 by Monday.
Traders said the weekend drop was due to a concentrated shift away from riskier assets in traditional markets amid fears of the Omicron variant, coupled with lower trading liquidity, which often occurs over the weekend.
According to crypto-data platform Coinglass, the total number of futures contracts held by market participants at the end of the day was $16.5 billion, up from $23.5 billion on Thursday.
Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat, shared his view on the latest slip-up, highlighting the “outsized correlation to macro uncertainty,” compared to the rest of the cryptocurrency market.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.