Tuesday Dec. 17 - Bitcoin (BTC) is retracing rapidly from around the $6,950 price mark to below $6,600 in the past few hours.

Cryptocurrency market daily overview. Source: Coin360

Bitcoin price is taking a painful nosedive, dropping close to $350 in just a few hours. BTC started the day at $6,915, at which point the world’s largest crypto coin continued to trade sideways before crashing down to its current trading price below the $6,600 price mark. BTC is showing a loss of nearly 5% for the day.

Bitcoin daily price chart. Source: Coin360

BTC at $2,800 could be next

Cointelegraph contributor Horus Hughes wrote that if BTC fails to hold the $6,600 price level, “traders will look for the price to follow the familiar pattern of dropping to the long-term descending channel trendline support at $6,400.”

Even more pessimistic, Cointelegraph analyst Keith Wareing wrote that BTC continues to be resoundingly bearish and could even see extreme lows of around the $2,800 price levels. “As things stand, the downside could be as low as $2,800 over the coming months,” he said.

Both Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) are getting spanked today. The top altcoin is creeping dangerously close to double-digit losses for the day, with losses of more than 8% on the day. The coin is currently trading just below the $122 price mark.

Ether 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Meanwhile, XRP, the third-largest coin by market capitalization, is already showing double-digit pain, with losses of more than 12% on the day. XRP currently sits at $0.018 per coin, having dropped below the $0.20 mark for the first time since October 2017.

XRP 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Top 20 coins join the Christmas spirit with red candlesticks across the board

Altcoins are bleeding hard. Chainlink (LINK) is taking the brunt of the pain with losses of more than 13% on the day, while Cosmos (ATOM) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are showing losses of 12% and 10% respectively.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap currently sits around $176.5 billion, with Bitcoin making up 67.6% of the total.