Crypto market struggles as both bitcoin & ethereum start week in the red

Major cryptocurrencies are down on Monday despite a slight rally over the weekend, with bitcoin trading around 3% lower at $34,231 and Ethereum losing 3% at $2,272.

By Monday morning, the broader cryptocurrency market had also lost more than 2.8% of its value, data provider CoinMarketCap states.

A record high for bitcoin earlier this year – over $64,000 in mid-April – drove the broader cryptocurrency market to reach a value of more than $2 trillion. Since that time, the crypto market has lost over half its value and is currently worth around $1.4 trillion.

Last month, bitcoin suffered a daily plunge of over 11%, dragging the cryptocurrency down to its lowest level this year – $28,993. The drop came after the People’s Bank of China summoned banks and payment companies and ordered them to stop facilitating crypto transactions in a further step of the nationwide crackdown on cryptocurrencies. Growing concerns about bitcoin’s energy use also added to stalling momentum for the crypto market.

However, experts say it’s not over for bitcoin – or cryptocurrencies in general.

“When you go too high, too fast, you are bound for a correction,” Alex Mashinsky, chief executive officer and co-founder of the centralized cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, told Cointelegraph at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami. He also predicted that bitcoin could reach as high as $160,000 this year: “We haven’t seen the highs yet for 2021.”

Increased institutional adoption of the crypto also sends a positive message, with Sotheby’s, the world’s largest broker of fine art and jewelry, for instance, announcing in June it will accept cryptocurrency for the first time as payment for a rare diamond, which is expected to fetch up to $15 million at an upcoming auction in Hong Kong.

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