Tighter monetary policies are weighing on speculative assets like crypto, Bitcoin crashed from $43,000 to $33,000 in four days and lost 23% of its value. On Jan. 28, the cryptocurrency was at $37,700, down nearly 50% from its all-time high, reached in November.
Has the plunge gone too far? Bitcoin’s relative strength index implies that the token is oversold, indicating it’s ripe for a bounce. Key support levels, such as its 200- and 50-day moving averages, have long been breached, indicating further downside ahead. Some analysts see a floor at $33,000, though $29,800 is also credible; Bitcoin fell that low in July, then rallied to nearly $70,000. “A lot of investors would back up the truck and open their checkbooks at prices around $29,000,” says Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat Global.
Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg, says Bitcoin isn’t far from the 50% discount to its 200-day moving average that marked low points in 2018 and 2020. He notes that $30,000 is a “key support,” and that institutional holders have swooped in at that price. “I would see the tide rising at that level,” he says, expecting Bitcoin to eventually rally to $100,000.
Wilfred Daye, head of Securitize Capital, a digital-asset marketplace, also sees support at $30,000. But if Bitcoinfalls further, its next stop could be $27,000. That’s generally the breakeven price for Bitcoin miners, who receive new coins for processing transactions. What happens if Bitcoin drops that far? “That’s a very scary thought,” he says, since it could usher in another “crypto winter,” a long stretch of deeply depressed prices.