Bitcoin slips as Ethereum confirms a rare weekly death cross

Bitcoin lost ground after failing to push through a closely watched price zone, while Ethereum triggered a rare bearish chart signal. For everyday crypto investors, the move shows how fragile sentiment remains even after Bitcoin bounced from a 21-month low.

Bitcoin was trading at $61,749 after falling 2.89% for the week, according to an analysis by Decrypt’s Jose Antonio Lanz published July 8. The token opened the week at $63,587, reached $64,657, then closed lower after failing to break above the $64,000 to $65,000 range.

That range matters because traders viewed it as resistance, meaning a price area where selling pressure has repeatedly stopped rallies. When an asset cannot clear resistance, short-term buyers often lose momentum because the market has not shown enough demand to absorb sellers at higher prices.

Bitcoin’s weakness followed a sharper scare days earlier, when the token touched $58,035, its lowest level in 21 months, according to Decrypt. The rebound back into the low $60,000s kept Bitcoin from extending that drop immediately, but the failed move through $64,000 to $65,000 left the short-term setup unresolved.

Ethereum’s trend signal turns lower

Ethereum’s chart looked weaker. Decrypt reported that ETH confirmed a weekly death cross for the first time in years, with its 50-week exponential moving average falling below its 200-week exponential moving average.

An exponential moving average, or EMA, is a trend line that gives more weight to recent prices. A death cross happens when a shorter-term average drops below a longer-term average, which technical traders often read as a sign that recent price action has weakened compared with the broader trend.

Ethereum was below $1,750 and down about 4% on the day in Decrypt’s report. The token was also down more than 30% over the prior year, according to the same analysis.

Prediction market traders were assigning a 72.3% probability that ETH would hit $1,500 before reaching $3,000 again, Decrypt reported. Prediction markets let traders bet on future outcomes, so those odds reflect positioning on that market rather than a guaranteed path for the token.

Fear spreads beyond the two largest tokens

The weakness was not limited to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Decrypt reported that the total crypto market capitalization excluding BTC and ETH had dropped 30% since January, showing that smaller tokens had been hit harder than the two largest crypto assets.

The broader mood also looked defensive. The crypto Fear and Greed Index stood at 23, a level labeled “extreme fear,” according to Decrypt. The index is a sentiment gauge that combines market inputs to estimate whether traders are leaning fearful or greedy.

There was one offsetting data point for Bitcoin bulls: spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds ended a 10-day streak of outflows totaling $2.7 billion, according to Decrypt. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are funds that hold Bitcoin directly and trade on traditional stock exchanges, giving investors exposure through brokerage accounts rather than crypto wallets.

Decrypt also noted that the current cycle differs from earlier Bitcoin downturns because spot ETFs, institutional balance sheets, updated accounting standards and digital asset legislation have changed Bitcoin’s market structure. The analysis said that does not remove volatility, but it does mean this bear market includes a different mix of participants than prior cycles.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.