Late on Sunday, after tenaciously clinging to support over $20,000 for much of the weekend, bitcoin plunged well below this level.
The price of the biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which had fallen more than 2% over the previous 24 hours, was recently $19,600.
As investors continued to mull over U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's promise to maintain the monetary hawkishness
the Fed adopted earlier this year, Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was recently trading at about $1,430, down more than 4%.
The Fed's recent diet of 75 basis point interest rate hikes was disappointing to those investors
who were looking to see indications that the Fed was certain its actions over the past several months were managing inflation.
According to Joe DiPasquale of crypto asset manager BitBull Capital, "the macroeconomic uncertainties continued to weigh on
"Those comments have had a negative impact on the market, and now bitcoin is testing the $20,000 support."