On Monday, the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), dropped below the USD 40,000 level for the first time since August 2021, while ethereum (ETH) dived below USD 3,000 for the first time since October.
At 14:36 UTC, BTC trades at USD 39,939 and is down almost 5% in a day, also erasing all its gains in the past 12 months. At the same time, ETH dropped almost 6%, trimming its annual gains to 129%.
As the selloff in the market accelerated, over USD 120m worth of crypto derivative positions were liquidated, or almost half of all liquidations in the past 24 hours, per Coinglass data.
Other major cryptoassets from the top 10 club are down 5%-10% in a day.
“Despite the crypto market being in oversold territory, it is widely impacted by global markets and economic conditions. Plans declared by the Federal Reserve for rate hikes in 2022, as well as reducing the rate of monthly bond purchases, have contributed to bitcoin’s selloff so far,” Marcus Sotiriou, Analyst at the UK based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, wrote in an emailed note.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, US inflation data will be released.
“The market expects the consumer price index (CPI) to rise 7.1% for the year through December and 0.4% over the month. If the figure released is larger than expected we can expect further sell pressure for bitcoin, as the markets are forward-looking and high inflation leads to more action from the Federal Reserve to control it,” Sotiriou said, adding that the downside is limited in the short term, even with higher-than-expected inflation data on Wednesday.
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Learn more:
– Bitcoin, Ethereum Could Benefit If Stocks Drop After Fed Tightening – Strategist
– Blame Fed and Leveraged Traders for This Crypto Seloff
– Bitcoin Could Reach USD 100K in Five Years If It Takes on Gold – Goldman Sachs
– USD 100K per Bitcoin ‘Hopium’ Now Moved to Mid-2022
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