ETH, LTC, DASH and NEO Just Erased Their 2018 Price Gains

In what is the latest sign of a depressed cryptocurrency market, some of the world's largest and most widely traded assets are now priced below where they were 12 months ago.

At press time, bitcoin's sell-off yesterday appears to have exposed the wider market to its worst losses since Oct. 11, a development that has caused the top 20 crypto assets by market capitalization to depreciate 3-10 percent and break down after a 12-day consolidation period.

With the move, DASH$67.62, LTC$101.04, BCH$510.12, ether ETH$3,535.71 and NEO$5.1845 have effectively erased any gains earned in 2018, according to exchange and CoinMarketCap data.

Weekly chart

Of the assets listed above, DASH is trading at $154 – a $130 difference to last years levels of $284 last seen Oct. 30, 2017, while BCH is trading at $472 on Oct. 30 last year now standing at $419 – a $53 difference.

Ether ETH$3,535.71 is also down on last year's Oct. 30 levels of $305, currently changing hands at $197 – a $108 difference.

It's also the same case for LTC and NEO down $6.66 and $12.55 respectively, which have both struggled to mount a reversal in the bearish trend that has been ongoing since bitcoin's breakdown in early Jan.

Granted around this time last year price action spurred on by the ICO madness, sparked a massive bull-run that shot the price of bitcoin up to its all-time high of $20,000 in late Dec.

This had the dual effect of increasing the value of the entire alt-coin market as people poured into crypto increasing the total market capitalization to its peak of $817 billion on Jan. 8, 2018.

A turn for the worse?

Things have changed since bitcoin first fell below a key indicator back in March of this year, which signified greater bearish conditions had taken hold as investors sought to exit altogether.

The 200-Daily Moving Average

(DMA) demonstrated a complete loss of bullish control the second time around when bitcoin attempted its move above $10,000 on March 12, 2018.

Bitcoin's dominance rate has also steadily increased by 0.44 percent on the week, presenting a shift away from altcoins in lieu of the expected November run-up.

So it seems the bears have tightened their grip on the altcoin market possibly feeding into the new year instead of experiencing a bullish resurgence like some are expecting until they can once again break above their year-on-year targets.

Disclosure: The authors hold USDT at the time of writing.

Calendar image via Shutterstock; charts by Trading View