Bitcoin declined to lows of $18,255 on Monday, the lowest levels since June for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin edged down 7.8%, trading at $18,430 according to data by CoinGecko.

As it stands, Bitcoin is under the prior cycle high, with negative sentiment likely to help the bearish drive to a lower target, Invezz reports.

Meanwhile, the Ethereum blockchain’s native token, Ether declined to a two-month low of $1,580, following The Merge last week, which transformed Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake mechanism. 

Total crypto market capitalisation fell to $858 billion, the lowest seen since July.

"Bullish catalysts are currently quite limited for crypto and we could see ETH testing yearly lows in the coming months," said Matthew Dibb, COO and co-founder of Singapore-based Stack Funds.

The bullish impact of The Merge looks to have already been priced in, says Crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe: “Ethereum is looking at weakness here, as it lost an upwards trending structure. Expecting a response from the region between $1,200-1,300. Not sure whether we’ll get a bounce towards $1,425 as FED on Wednesday is most important as a decider of a trend.”

However, deVere CEO and founder Nigel Green said of The Merge: “Whilst some of the news has been priced-in already, let there be no mistake: this event will be a major catalyst driving prices higher in the long term.

“The slashing of energy consumption will be the main reason as it will become significantly more appealing to institutional investors, who bring with them enormous capital, expertise and reputational pull.”

He added: “Due to the significance of The Merge, we expect the developments to bolster prices across the wider crypto market to some degree.”