Bitcoin Falls to Lowest in a Month as Risk Aversion Takes Toll
The global crypto market’s value dropped about 4% in the past 24 hours to $1.9 trillion, according to pricing from CoinGecko.
(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin dropped to its lowest level in more than a month and other digital assets tumbled as investors’ tendency toward risk aversion, combined with the lack of a clear catalyst for buying, drove the market lower.
The largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 4.2% to $38,580 on Monday while Ether -- the No. 2 digital asset -- dropped 5.3%, declining to as low as $2,885; both regained some ground in the New York morning. The global crypto market’s value dropped about 4% in the past 24 hours to $1.9 trillion, according to pricing from CoinGecko. Altcoins were among the biggest decliners, with Bitcoin Cash, EOS and Ethereum Classic each decreasing more than 6% at one point. Shiba Inu also fell, giving up some gains after surging last week following its listing with Robinhood.
“We’ve seen weakness in crypto, largely in line with the selloff in equities and other risk assets,” Joshua Lim, head of derivative at Genesis Global Trading, said. Investors from the world of traditional finance continue to be risk-averse, while crypto-centric holders are awaiting any signs of fresh interest from recent significant Bitcoin buyers such as MicroStrategy Inc. and the Luna Foundation Guard, which has been building a Bitcoin position in support of the Terra blockchain and its stablecoin.
Technical charts suggest that despite Bitcoin’s recent drop, it is “not close to an oversold reading,” and near-term support at $35,000 likely won’t hold, said John Roque, technical analyst at 22V Research, in a note Sunday. “We continue to believe that it will get to the $30,000 level,” he said.
“Technical traders have been paying a lot of attention to the support at the $39,500 region for a while,” Teong Hng, chief executive of Hong Kong-based Satori Research, said. “When it broke lower today in thin liquidity, lots of stop-selling ensued.”
Bitcoin has been struggling along with risk assets in recent months, largely trading in a range of $35,000 to $45,000 this year as the Federal Reserve started hiking interest rates amid stubbornly high inflation. Trading volumes have also tapered off, including across Coinbase, Bitfinex, Kraken, Bitstamp and other exchanges. An aggregated measure shows volumes are lower by roughly 60% versus levels seen last May. Meanwhile, Google searches for the word “Bitcoin” have also declined, and social-media activity via the Crypto Subreddit -- as measured by things like comments and posts per day -- are down from mid-2021 levels.
“The macro environment seems murkier than ever,” David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase Global Inc., wrote in a note. “No one theme seems particularly dominant for markets, which we think makes it tough for institutional investors to deploy capital with any meaningful confidence in the short term.”
Analysis from data-provider Glassnode suggests that interest in Bitcoin has remained muted, with little growth in the coin’s user base and minimal flows of new demand.
Many Bitcoin bulls remain unbowed, with predictions of $100,000 and even higher still being mentioned. But price targets like $500,000 and $1 million circulating mean “it’s hard for us to figure sentiment remains anything but constructive. And with a chart that looks like this, that’s bad news,” Roque said.
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