The decline in crypto currencies comes after the U.S. Fed’s hawkish policy stance at its September meeting

Bitcoin dropped Monday morning in Asia to trade below $26,300. Ether also slipped and stayed below the $1,600 mark. All other leading non-stablecoin crypto currencies were lower. Toncoin led the losers with a decline of more than 4% over the past 24 hours. The decline in crypto currencies comes after the U.S. Fed’s hawkish policy stance at its September meeting. Although it paused interest hikes, the Fed hinted another hike to come by the end of this year, with rates to stay higher for longer than expected. All three major U.S. indexes ended lower on Friday for a week of losses.

Bitcoin shed 1.22% during the past 24 hours to $26,252.57, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s biggest crypto currency posted a weekly decline of 0.91%. It was above $26,500 over the weekend but lost the support line early Monday morning.

Overall, the trend is down and stays bearish, Markus Thielen, head of research and strategy at digital asset service platform Matrixport, stated in a report Monday.

As Bitcoin failed to breach its 50-day moving average of $26,876, more downward movement is anticipated.

If Bitcoin trades below $26,000 then the market might try another break lower, he added. He said that “October tends to be seasonal bullish for Bitcoin, but we would stay cautious without a break above its 50d moving average.”

Ether lost 0.86% to $1,579.12, trading down 2.52% for the week. The world’s second biggest crypto currency dropped below the $1,600 support level for the first time since Thursday.

We mostly worry about Ethereum as weak fundamentals plus a lack of hype around the EIP-4844 upgrade (which should come sometime in the fourth quarter of 2023) could make the blockchain slowly obsolete, Thielen added.

Ethereum’s failure to rise above $1,650 is of the utmost concern as a break lower could have major impact for the altcoin sentiment, he said.