Bitcoin slides under US$41,000 on China 'ban'; BTC dominance falls under 40pc

Bitcoin dominance has fallen to a three-year low as the OG cryptocurrency traded for under US$41,000 for the first time since early February.

BTC was changing hands for under US$40,900 ($52,500) at 12.30pm AEST, down 8.3 per cent from yesterday, but many midcap altcoins were showing resilience. Thirty of the top 100 were in the green, with six up by double-digits. Only four members of the top 100 were down by more than 10 per cent.

Bitcoin was trading over US$45,000 yesterday evening but began to drop around 9pm AEST after Chinese authorities reiterated the country’s ban on banks offering cryptocurrency services. There didn’t appear to be much new in the announcement, however, leading to some suspicions it was an attempt to inject fear, uncertainty and doubt (“FUD”) into the crypto market.

2021 – China bans Bitcoin https://t.co/vEuCtRmXvd

— ∞ CO฿IE (@CryptoCobain) May 18, 2021

To be clear – China is ONLY banning Institutions from engaging in crypto trading –

Not retail. This shouldn’t even be considered FUD, it’s a non story. pic.twitter.com/aVNYERKCCu

— Mr.Business (@Adouble212) May 18, 2021

In the last week
– Elon FUDMedia
– China FUD
– Binance FUD
– OCC FUD

All at the same time.

There is a coordinated effort to shake you out. #bitcoin

— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) May 19, 2021

In any case cryptos were decidedly mixed this morning.

Ethereum was changing hands at just over US$3,200 ($4,100), and Bitcoin’s overall share of the crypto market (its “dominance”) earlier this morning dropped under 40 per cent for the first time since May 2018, according to TradingView. It stood at over 70 per cent at the start of the year.

At lunchtime BTC dominance was holding at 40.18 per cent.

Looked at another way, Ethereum and smaller altcoins now make up nearly 60 per cent of the crypto market.

bitcoin dominance is gonna finally be below 40% alts should start to be unpairing from btc soon. Hello alt season 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 siacoin about to go crazy

— envelope (@willngu82379720) May 19, 2021

While all the top 10 cryptocurrencies (except for Tether) were firmly in the red, Polygon (MATIC), Sushi, xSushi, Fantom and Solana were all up by double-digits. Polygon was holding over US$2 after breaching that threshold yesterday, but Cardano had slid under it.

xSUSHI was the top gainer, rising 22.9 per cent to US$22.86. The token rewards holders with fees from users of the decentralised SushiSwap exchange, a marketplace for swapping Ethereum ERC-20 tokens.

THORChain, Aave, Celo, Kusama, Solana and Polygon had all hit all-time highs in the past 24 hours, according to Coingolive.

How low do we go?

Dutch crypto trader Michael van de Poppe suggested overnight that BTC could drop as low as US$38,000 before making its next leg higher.

Discussed in the update.

Probably we get a final deep wick into the support block between $38,000-41,000, which shakes out retail. After that, reversal on #Bitcoin.

Full analysis:https://t.co/rgUjBhuCyh pic.twitter.com/dZdtmcKECa

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) May 18, 2021