Bitcoin prices drops below $66,000, extending cryptocurrency’s decline

Bitcoin’s price fell below $66,000 in Monday morning trading, extending last week’s declines as a slew of new U.S. economic data put a damper on its earlier hot streak.

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The popular cryptocurrency traded at around $65,600 on Monday, down nearly 2% over the past 24 hours to kick off the week. In the past seven days, Bitcoin has fallen roughly 6%.

After nearing all-time highs earlier this month when it traded above $71,000, Bitcoin, and the crypto market on the whole, has largely cooled and continued to see steady declines. It fell below $67,000 last week ahead of the latest Consumer Price Index and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, which both landed Wednesday — and briefly dipped below $65,000 over the weekend.

The key inflation measure declined to 3.3% year-over-year. To boot, Fed officials voted to keep the benchmark federal funds rate steady between 5.25% and 5.5% and forecasted just one rate cut for 2024. The Dow initially surged more than 350 points and the S&P 500 reached a new record high last Wednesday following the news, but those gains were later erased.

The declines have seemingly brought hopes of all-time highs for the largest cryptocurrency to an end, at least for now. And other cryptocurrencies have followed suit, sinking alongside Bitcoin.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, also dipped 1.45% on Monday, hovering around $3,500. Other major blockchains, including Solana, Dogecoin, and Cardano all fell between 2% and 3% on Tuesday morning, as the crypto market continues its steady decline.

Overall, the global crypto market cap has slipped 1.6% in the last day, bringing its market cap to $2.39 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.