Ethereum price swoons after record peak, bitcoin momentum fizzles as crypto market faces late-Monday slump

Crypto assets experienced a sudden retreat Monday afternoon, with Ethererum prices pulling back firmly after reaching a record above $4,200.

Prices of bitcoin
BTCUSD,
+0.97%
,
the most prominent crypto in the world, also was trading notably lower.

The reason for the retreat in values wasn’t immediately clear, but digital assets are notoriously volatile.

“This price action indicates that we have most likely hit a short-term top at $64K,”  wrote Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange, about bitcoin.

The chief of the digital-asset derivatives exchange wrote that bitcoin may challenge $40,000 in the coming weeks, if it breaches $50,000.

At last check, Ether
ETHUSD,
+2.19%

was changing hands at $3,882.88 on CoinDesk, down 0.4%, but well off its record 24-hour high at $4,213.46.

Bitcoin prices were down 4.3% at about $55,375, while one of the most talked about assets, dogecoin
DOGEUSD,
+4.02%
,
was down over 19% at 45 cents. From its peak on Saturday at nearly 75 cents, doge was down 40%.

The slide for crypto broadly come as the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.10%
,
the S&P 500
SPX,
-1.04%

and the Nasdaq Composite Index all finished lower on the day.