Bitcoin hits lowest level in more than a month

London — Bitcoin’s painful 2018 crash continues, with the original cryptocurrency touching its lowest in more than a month on Monday.

Falling as much as 5.2% since the weekend, the largest digital asset in the space dragged the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto index to its worst decline in more than two weeks. Ether and Bitcoin Cash both fell more than 10%.

It’s been a disappointing start to the year for crypto investors, who hoped that the pain of the downturn was behind them. More than $400bn in market value was wiped out in the past 12 months as widespread adoption failed to materialise, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com. The total market capitalisation is now about $113bn.

Meanwhile, the economics of the industry has come under pressure, with so-called miners finding the average cost of producing bitcoin was more than its value. More work is being done to identify money laundering using the asset class.

The technical outlook doesn’t bode well for the bulls. Based on the GTI Vera Convergence Divergence Technical Indicator, the largest cryptocurrency just entered a new selling trend on Monday for the first time since mid-November. The last time a sell signal was sent bitcoin tumbled about 50% from $6,280 a coin to $3,156 over a nearly two-week span.

With Kenneth Sexton

Bloomberg