Bitcoin fluctuated around $19,000 Wednesday following the Federal Reserve’s decision to hike interest rates by 75 basis points.
Analysts saw bitcoin’s summer low of $17,708 as the asset's key test for buyer support.
After trading in a volatile $1,000 range, the largest crypto is trading pretty much flat on the day.
Bitcoin price is down roughly 3% in the last five days and 60% year to date.
On Wall Street, the consensus expectation for a 75-basis-point rate in September was anticipated to send cryptocurrencies on a sell off but the asset class is holding up better than expected.
“Bitcoin is still searching for a bottom,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst with Oanda told Yahoo Finance, adding that the most bearish investors are anticipating the coin to fall as low as $10,000 before the year's end. “But the bigger question is whether it will retest summer lows,” he pointed out.
The U.S. dollar (DX-Y.NYB) has strengthened to highs not seen for 20 years and that has proven destructive for crypto as well as and other risk assets.
"Strengthening dollar is bearish for risk assets but oil is coming down and that's a signal inflation may have reached its peak," Martin Leinweber, a digital asset strategist with MarketVector told Yahoo Finance.
At its summer low, bitcoin still carried 4 times its value from five years ago ($4,403). Meanwhile, the total crypto market capitalization has swelled by 85% from $133 billion to $932 billion — though still small by institutional investor standards.
Quant asset management firm IDX, which has moved all its crypto holdings back into cash, isn’t planning to re-enter the market any time soon.
“We’re very much in a risk-off posture and we have been for a while,” Ben McMillan, the company’s founder and chief investment officer, told Yahoo Finance.
Created during the financial crisis, bitcoin was introduced as money for the internet, specifically the first peer-to-peer electronic cash system outside of the reach of governments.
Over the years, its popularity among goldbugs, followers of Austrian economics, Silicon Valley tech elites, and risk hungry investors have put it on Wall Street's and global policymaker's radars.
Fresh off its Merge upgrade last week, Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency, has fallen 16% over the past seven days and is trading at $1,339 Wednesday afternoon. Though a tech milestone for its blockchain protocol, the Merge has put the second largest cryptocurrency back into the SEC's crosshairs.
While crypto's total market cap value has sold off by two-thirds since its peak last November, institutions are still seeking opportunities in the space with Nasdaq and Japanese bank Nomura both launching a digital assets business Tuesday.
Like other investors, IDX's McMillan is taking a historic view on how crypto is currently trading, likening it to a speculative technology stock during the "dot-com" boom when the era's best and worse performers looked identical on a chart.
“At one point Pets.com and Amazon were both down 90%," he said. "One of them went out of business and one of them went on to be an industry titan."
This post was updated with the latest price action.
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David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance covering the cryptocurrency and stock markets. Follow him on Twitter at @DsHollers
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