Bitcoin Fails to Clear $20,000 Mark as Crypto Prices Reverse Tuesday's Gains

Bitcoin bulls appear to have quickly lost steam as gains of over 4 percent gained through Tuesday quickly got wiped off in early Wednesday to suggest only a minor bullish spell, while technical indicators remain bearish on the whole. As things stand, the value of Bitcoin is staring at a dip of 6.14 percent in the last 24 hours with its price now around the $18,900 (roughly Rs. 15 lakh) mark across global exchanges while Indian exchanges like CoinDCX value BTC at $20,199 (roughly Rs. 16 lakh), 3.47 percent lower than that on early Tuesday.

On global exchanges like CoinMarketCap, Coinbase, and Binance the price of Bitcoin stands at $18,908 (roughly Rs. 15 lakh) while CoinGecko data shows that BTC's value now sits 0.3 percent lower than where it stood last Wednesday.

Ether, the largest smart contracts token had seen itself begin the week on a bit of an upturn before surrendering most of its gains on Wednesday. Ether is currently down by more than 6.55 percent over the past 24 hours, trading in the $1,290 (roughly Rs. 1 lakh) range across global exchanges. Meanwhile on Indian exchanges, ETH is valued at $1,385 (roughly Rs. 1 lakh) where values are down by 2.52 percent over the past day.

Gadgets 360's cryptocurrency price tracker reveals that most major altcoins had a similar slide over the weekend too. The global crypto market capitalisation also witnessed a drop of 5.84 percent through late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

Cardano, Avalanche, Uniswap, Cosmos, Solana, Polygon, TRON, Monero, Chainlink, and BNB all marked considerable dips over the last 24 hours.

Memecoins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin share a similar plight. Dogecoin is currently valued at $0.06 (roughly Rs. 5) after losing 4.14 percent in value over the last 24 hours, while, Shiba Inu is valued at $0.000011 (roughly Rs. 0.000897), down 3.06 percent over the past day.

"As fears of further credit tightening measures by multiple central banks across the globe potentially driving the world economy into a recession increase, investors turn to safety as the DXY (Dollar Strength Index) climbs from strength to strength in times of uncertainty with the DXY testing new highs of around 115 as the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.6 percent and S&P 500 lost 1 percent on Monday. However, a slight rejection from the 115 level for the DXY provided the impetus for a small relief rally that saw Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market reclaim the $1 trillion (roughly Rs. 81,48,100 crore) market cap level which saw over $50 million (roughly Rs. 400 crore) in short liquidations across top centralised exchanges on the day further igniting the up-move as the excess leverage from the market was flushed out," says the CoinDCX Research Team speaking to Gadgets 360.

"Crypto and Bitcoin are inversely correlated to the DXY as Bitcoin is primarily considered a hedge against currency devaluation - a sort of CDS on fiat structures that are collapsing due to years of monetary mismanagement, irresponsible quantitative easing and prolonged 0 percent interest rates that created imbalances and entrenched inflation with the notion of Time Value of Money and sustainable rates completely escaping this generation.

However, as the world has finally pivoted to removing liquidity and embracing quantitative tightening to tame inflationary pressures, Bitcoin and crypto will have a harder time as the money supply is gradually removed from the system, thereby reducing the expected growth multiples for risk-on assets such as high-beta tech stocks and crypto," the research team adds.

"This has primarily been the reason that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have suffered since the market top in November 2021 but one could also argue that the FED's hawkishness has already been priced in with several on-chain indicators that have identified oversold regions in the past reaching similar levels indicating attractive valuation metrics for Bitcoin especially from a long-term perspective. With the doom and gloom surrounding the macroeconomic landscape right now, Web3 based institutional investors and hedge funds are on wait and watch mode waiting patiently or dollar cost averaging their way through this turbulent market; which is one of the safest strategies for most investors to position themselves responsibly in these times of uncertainty."

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