Cryptocurrency struggling early Monday morning with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin all lower

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Bitcoin was struggling early Monday morning following a downtrend last week with blame clearly landing on Fed plans to raise interest rates in March.

The cryptocurrency was trading just above $37,200 (-2.23%) overnight. Rivals Ethereum and Dogecoin were also down, with Ethereum trading at $2,530 (-2.96%) and Dogecoin trading at 13.7 cents, down 3.83%, Coindesk reported.

Bitcoin’s monthly moving average convergence divergence (MACD) histogram has crossed below zero, a so-called "sell signal," Coindesk reported, indicating a bullish-to-bearish trend change on the longer duration price chart.

Bitcoin was struggling early Monday morning following a downtrend last week with blame clearly landing on Fed plans to raise interest rates in March. (iStock)

Bitcoin is staring at a third straight month of losses amid heightened fears of global monetary policy tightening, the report said.

The cryptocurrency has barely moved as major markets in Asia head into the weeklong lunar New Year break this week.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission nixed another Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) application.

The commission said mutual fund giant Fidelity’s application did not satisfy regulators because it failed to show it can protect investors from fraud, as detailed in the SEC ruling. In November, the commission rejected VanEck’s Bitcoin ETF for similar reasons.

Earlier Monday, crypto exchange BitMEX airdropped 1.5 million BMEX, its first native tokens, to users as it looks to revive retail interest, Coindesk reported. The tokens were airdropped based on a user’s previous activity on the exchange.

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The Ethereum-based tokens are locked in a 5-year vesting contract and have a maximum supply of 450 million. These will be used to reward new and existing BitMEX users and allow them to get discounts on trading fees, the report said.

The tokens were distributed at 5% reserved for future airdrops, 20% for liquidity provision when BMEX spot trading is launched, 20% as BitMEX employee incentives, 30% for marketing and affiliate rewards and 25% as a long-term reserve, Coindesk reported.

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