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Digital currencies struggled to hold on to gains made over the weekend, with all major cryptocurrencies trading in negative territory early Monday.
After hitting a 10-day high of $7,768.93 on Sunday, bitcoin, the worlds biggest digital currency, has drifted back toward $7,500 — the level it spent much of last week gravitating around.
Despite last week being a quiet one on the volatility front, interest in the No. 1 digital currency is not waning. “At the Cboe futures exchange, the bitcoin futures (XBT) contract volume saw a big increase from the previous week,” wrote Peter Lusk, senior instructor at the Cboe.
“Monday was a U.S. holiday, so the market was closed, but on Tuesday, the front-month contract recorded an all-time high volume, with 8,373 contracts trading that day.”
Even with the shortened week, the average daily volume was 5,755 contracts up from 4,490 contracts the week prior.
The price of a single bitcoin was last worth $7,538.49, down 2.5% since Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange.
Altcoins head lower; futures bucking the trend
Altcoins, or coins other than bitcoin, are trading lower to begin the week.
Ether is down 4% to $596.04, Bitcoin Cash has lost 5.1% to $1,119.20, Litecoin is off 3.8% at $120.72 and Ripple’s XRP coin is at 65 cents, down 1.8% on the day.
Capitalizing on the weekend gains, bitcoin futures are in the green. The Cboe June contract rose 1.3% at $7,535, while the CME June contract gained 1.2% at $7,530.