Investing.com-- Bitcoin fell slightly on Monday, cooling after a weekend rally as markets awaited more cues on crypto policy from incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.
Caution over more distributions by defunct exchange Mt. Gox also weighed, after a wallet associated with the exchange moved over $2 billion worth of coins last week. Such a move usually heralds a distribution event, with Mt. Gox still holding billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin it plans to return to creditors.
Bitcoin fell 0.4% to $99,439.8 by 00:01 ET (05:01 GMT).
Trump crypto rally pauses ahead of more policy, economic cues
Optimism over crypto-friendly regulations under President-elect Donald Trump saw Bitcoin rise sharply last week, reaching a record high of $103,719.4.
Cheer over Trump’s policy plans rose last week after he nominated a crypto-friendly Chair for the Securities and Exchange Commission. This came after he named pro-crypto candidates to lead the Treasury and as the Secretary of Commerce.
Trump has promised to dole out crypto-friendly regulations during his second term, making America the “crypto capital” of the world. He has also floated the idea of a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, although analysts are sceptical over the prospect of a reserve.
Bitcoin still remained in sight of recent peaks, although traders were now awaiting more cues on crypto policy, ahead of Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
Altcoins overtake Bitcoin on regulatory cheer
One trend that emerged in recent weeks was altcoins seeing much more pronounced gains than Bitcoin, in hopes that increased regulatory clarity will move market focus away from Bitcoin and onto more use cases.
XRP was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this trade, surging to six-year highs as traders bet that the SEC will also drop its long-running lawsuit against issuer Ripple as Trump takes office.
A sharp drop in Bitcoin dominance- which gauges the percentage of crypto market capitalization held by Bitcoin- furthered the notion of altcoin outperformance. Bitcoin dominance fell to a one-month low of around 55%, data from Coinmarketcap showed.
Bitcoin’s rally this year overshadowed most other cryptocurrencies. But this also left them trading at potentially attractive discounts.
Crypto price today: altcoins drift lower tracking Bitcoin
While major altcoins did fare better than Bitcoin in recent weeks, their rally was also seen cooling in tandem with the crypto major on Monday.
World no.2 crypto Ether fell 1% to $3,939.69, while XRP - which recently became the third-largest crypto- fell 0.5% to $2.4821.
Solana , Cardano and Polygon fell between 1.6% and 2.5%, while among meme tokens, Dogecoin shed 4.6%.