Altcoins Take a Hit as Bitcoin Slips Below $41,000
The pioneer cryptocurrency Bitcoin has continued bleeding in the market, falling below $41,000. The king cryptocurrency lost support above $42,000 earlier today, following a price downturn that started at the end of the weekend. The last time Bitcoin traded around its current price ($40,430) was on March 22. The markets were, however, in stark contrast as, at the time, Bitcoin was gearing for a rally to a 90-day high just above $48,080 a couple of days later.
As expected, the wider crypto market has followed Bitcoin’s lead.
Ethereum (ETH) has charted a similar path but is down by a wider margin in the daily and weekly timeframes. Bitcoin has dropped 6.36% and 10.94%, respectively, while the equivalent figures for Ethereum are 8.27% and 12.32%. Ethereum, which lost footing above $3,250 coming off the weekend, was at the time of writing trading at $3,022. Nonetheless, the benchmark alt is doing better than most rival altcoins.
To learn more about these tokens, visit our Investor’s guide on Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Solana, Cardano and Avalanche slump
The rest of the market has seen even bigger price dips. The transactional tokens of the Solana, Cardano and Avalanche networks have lost more than Ether over the same period. SOL, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is down 11.02% on the day, currently trading at $102.62.
Cardano’s ADA token fell below the $1.00 mark and is now hovering at $0.946 – after bottoming out at 0.940 as per CoinMarketCap data. The drop has effectively wiped away all the gains the ADA token accrued from the last week of March when it climbed as high as $1.24.
The market performance is not any different for Avalanche and Algorand tokens. AVAX is down to $74.83 after seeing a 12.19% slip on Monday. ALGO is down roughly by the same figure and is trading at $0.71. The 7-days changes for the two tokens both show a 20% slump.
To learn more about these tokens, visit our Investor’s guide on Algorand, Avalanche, Cardano or Solana.
Bears take control into the new week
Though expected at some point, the correction comes against the general tide in the cryptocurrency market.
For starters, this year’s edition of the annual Bitcoin Conference took place at the end of last week. Some in the space were hoping for the Bitcoin price to rise on the back of the news and announcements being made at the conference. Despite pulling in thousands of crypto enthusiasts and bearing positive news, the event didn’t provide any boost to the price of the asset.
A Sunday $170 million splurge on Bitcoin by Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard also went by overlooked as Bitcoin continued to lose ground. Some market analysts argue that activity in the traditional markets is affecting the crypto market to a larger degree and is partly the reason for the recent price action.
Ethereum to retest $2,500, Arthur Hayes says
Former BitMEX chief Arthur Hayes in his latest blog shared today, projected that Ether may revisit March lows of $2,5oo before the end of Q2. Hayes went into detail about several macro factors and their potential influence on the crypto market before giving a verdict that the factors will collectively lead to a bearish run. For Bitcoin, he set a target of $30,000.
The trading and crypto enthusiast posited that the two leading cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether, have depicted a high correlation to the tech-focused Nasdaq 100 (NDX) stock market index. So far this year, the global stock markets have endured a tough beating and are in an indisposed state. Hayes argued that a tumble in NDX will translate to a similar reaction in the crypto market.
“Bitcoin and Ether are highly correlated to the Nasdaq 100. If the NDX tanks, it will take crypto down with it.”
He further pointed to the impact of the Russian invasion and high interest rates as two factors that could dent the stock markets.
The former BitMEX executive, however, noted that while he expects the two to tumble to the respective targets, he is bullish in the long term. In conclusion, he warned that the markets can play out differently from his analysis.
