Bitcoin (BTC) Threatens Another Slide Under $20,000
Bitcoin (BTC) showed renewed price weakness, suggesting another bearish scenario may play out in the short term. BTC managed to hold above $21,000 in the past week, though looking shaky. Another dip closer to $20,000 may trigger one of the expected crashes to a much lower range.
BTC continues to trade with a very fearful sentiment, which can potentially exacerbate the slide. The dip to $10K may affect both retail and institutional buyers that acquired coins at a higher price, leading to more panic. For now MicroStrategy gave signs of more buying and holding onto their stash despite being underwater on their average buying price.
The buying decision was considered more of a symbolic message, as the portfolio of MicroStrategy is already much larger. Yet the next few days will see a battle for the BTC weekly close, potentially affecting the price in the coming weeks.
BTC Loses Trading Volume
BTC trading lost about 30% of its usual trading volumes, sliding down to $19B in 24 hours. Those levels are more usual for a weekend than a busy mid-week trading day.
The chief cause may be the slide in USDT supply down to 66.8B, as well as the sinking of USDT trading volumes. Currently, USDT carries $46B in daily trades, for both BTC and other assets.
The loss of trading activity also shows a waiting attitude, as most of the news and factors have almost played out. BTC remains stagnant with no message or expectation to drive its price. Additionally, retail enthusiasm has fallen as BTC and crypto markets fail to bring constant earnings.
Is Crypto Winter Here
Based on the activity of the market, there are comparisons with the 2018-2021 period. This time span was known as Crypto Winter, when most prices remained stagnant.
Leading companies that went prominent during the boom are laying off as much as 30% of some of the newly hired experts during boom times. Those include Coinbase, BlockFi and even Gemini.
Compared to 2018, where the boom was relatively short-liver, the bull market of 2021 created many interdependent DeFi structures. Driven by influencers and hype, the market expanded and included new retail buyers for both BTC and new tokens.
Now the question remains of how deep and how long the period would last. At the same time, even with the crash of Terra LFG and the default of Three Arrows Capital, BTC is still above $20,000 and ETH above $1,000.
Is BTC Spot Buying a Good Long-Term Signal
At the current prices, there futures market remains fearful, while retail buying continues. Based on Glassnode data, while miners are shedding coins, retail buyers are accumulating.
This may not save the market in the short term, but there is also a readiness to wait out and see BTC over the horizon of a few years. While short-term trading remains uncertain, there are still bets that BTC outperforms.
SEC Denies Grayscale ETF Conversion
One of the long-awaited events for Grayscale failed once again. The Grayscale funds, which hinge on the price of some of the top crypto assets, wanted to move a step further. Grayscale wanted to create a spot ETF to convert its GBTC funds.
GBTC trades on the OTC markets and has often traded with a significant premium or discount to the spot market. However, the inherently unstable BTC price was the cause for another SEC refusal.
This does not preclude the launch of an ETF in the future, and this time, the news was shared by one of the BTC skeptics. However, the factors surrounding BTC trading remain risky.
As a response, Grayscale has announced a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Promised Tether Audit Still Months Away
Once again, the biggest source of market fear remain Tether (USDT). For years, Tether, Inc. and iFinex have only issued affidavits of assets, with no official audit.
In the meantime, the USDT supply saw another 500M tokens withdrawn from circulation, for a total of 66.4B currently available. This unwinding of USDT liquidity may remove some of the risk, but also decrease trading volumes and extend price stagnancy.
Additionally, there is no tool to trace how much reserves Tether has, or if it has been exposed to unsecured loans. The size of USDT is much more significant and a fallout may bring the entire crypto market to a much lower position, since before the introduction of stablecoins.
Tether itself has warned that some of the fears are deliberately introduced and there may be deliberate attacks on the asset.
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