In the first quarter of 2018, cryptocurrency markets lost just over 48 percent of their value on January 1, and total capitalization dropped from around $ 612 billion to $ 261 billion in the first quarter. The Ripple Price (XRP) - one of the five largest cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap - fell by almost 78 percent, whose valuation unit is at $ 0.51, compared to January 1, at about $ 2.30. The second largest drop in terms of percentage is Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which lost about 73 percent of its value. In January, its price was around $ 2,543, today it is about $ 697. Litecoin (LTC) fell by about 49 percent from the price of January 1, when it cost about $ 231, where today it is around $ 118. The leading cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, survived the worst first quarters since their inception. The price of Bitcoin fell by about 52 percent from January 1, when the price was around $ 14,122, to about $ 6,890 on March 31. ETH, which was sold at around $ 755 on January 1. It fell by about 48 percent, to around $ 394 on March 31.
The fall in prices in all sectors can be attributed to the increase in regulatory regulation by various global entities, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the control of Japanese unregistered cryptocurrency exchanges following the attack on Coincheck and Twitter, Facebook, and Google banning cryptography-related ads.
Let's now take a look at the Bitcoin technical picture at the H4 time frame. Despite the initial breakout through the short-term descending trend line, the price was capped at the nearest technical resistance at the level of $7,500 and returned back to the local lows again. Any violation of the technical support at the level of $6,400 will lead to the test of the recent swing low at the level of $5,820.
