Bitcoin traded in a tight range this week, which provided some relief to market participants after a volatile start to the year. The cryptocurrency was roughly flat over the past 24 hours and up about 3% over the past week, compared to a 5% gain in ether.

Some traders and analysts remain cautious despite the brief price bounce off $40,000 earlier this week.

"Price swings are all happening on wafer-thin volumes, which can amplify price movements," Q9 Capital, a Hong Kong-based crypto investing platform, wrote in a briefing on Friday. "No fresh capital is coming in and nobody is willing to sell or buy," Q9 wrote.

"Attempts earlier in the week to form a rebound are encountering more substantial selling, further indicating seller pressure," Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at FxPro, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.

Kuptsikevich is especially concerned about further declines in ether, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after bitcoin. If momentum continues to deteriorate, he anticipates a worst-case scenario of $1,300-$1,700 ETH, which is roughly 50% below current price levels.

But not all corners of the crypto ecosystem are experiencing a slowdown in trading activity.

Non-fungible token (NFT) trading volumes continue to soar. For example, OpenSea, a large NFT marketplace, is on pace to exceed $6 billion in transactions by the end of the month.

And dogecoin (DOGE), the popular dog-themed meme coin, surged almost 14% on Friday after electric-car maker Tesla went live with accepting the cryptocurrency as payment for merchandise. DOGE is up about 20% over the past week.

In observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in the U.S. on Monday, Market Wrap will return on Tuesday, Jan. 18.

Some investors are still holding bitcoin for the long term despite the recent sell-off. The chart below shows an increase in the net position change among long-term bitcoin holders this month. Accumulation of BTC around current price levels could be a bullish sign.

The increase in long-term holder positions "gives a positive outlook for bitcoin's price," Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at the U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. Sotiriou expects BTC to rebound to the $45,000-$46,000 price range in the coming days.

Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.

Largest winners:

Largest losers:

Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive, and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.