After a long period of sideways trading, Bitcoin has decisively broken below the bottom of its long-established trading range between $6,200 and $6,700 and plummeted to fresh 2018 lows. Bitcoin’s massive drop led to widespread carnage in the altcoin markets, with most dropping between 10-20%.

Analysts Believe Bitcoin Could Fall Even Further

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading down 10% at its current price of $5,700. As discussed in previous market updates, BTC has been ranging sideways for months, and this is the first decisive move out of the aforementioned range since it was first formed in early-September.

Today’s drop has set new year-to-date lows for Bitcoin, which were previously established at $5,800 earlier this year. The latest drop is leading some analysts to believe that its price will fall even further.

While speaking to MarketWatch, Naeem Aslam, the chief market analyst at Think Markets U.K., said that this drop first began when BTC failed to break through $6,500, and that lower lows are now in play.

“After the recent attempt to clear $6,500 bitcoin has lost all its momentum and now we are seeing some very bearish signals.” He further added that the next levels to watch for are $5,200-$5,300.

Altcoins Swimming in Blood

Bitcoin’s unprecedented fall led virtually all altcoins to drop, with the best performers trading down around 10%, and the worst performers trading down nearly 20%.

At the time of writing, XRP is one of the best performing major altcoin, currently trading down 10% at its current price of $0.46. It has recovered slightly from its daily lows of approximately $0.42 and is proving to be relatively stable at its current price levels.

XRP has now taken the number two spot by market capitalization from ETH, which is currently trading down nearly 13% at its current price of $180. Although XRP is ahead of ETH as of now, its lead is marginal and will likely switch multiple times over the coming hours and days.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is one of today’s worst performing altcoins, as it is currently trading down 16% at its current price of $434. BCH has its hard fork event scheduled to occur tomorrow, but its poor daily and weekly performance is likely a sign that investors are not interested in the crypto units resulting from the hard fork.

Tether (USDT) has also, ironically, seen relatively large volatility today, which is likely the result of increased trading activity with the USDT trading pairs on major exchanges. At the time of writing, USDT is trading down nearly 1% at its current price of $0.97 and is down significantly from its daily highs of nearly $1.01.

Investors will now be looking towards how well Bitcoin performs in the coming days as a signal for which direction the market will trend, although the odds of an end-of-year rally occurring were significantly damaged by today’s drop.

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