With the crypto market getting its cues and clues from macro forces, some analysts are predicting potential choppy sideways action and a clawing sense of uncertainty for Bitcoin in the next month or two.
At the time of writing, trading on the major US stock markets, as reflected by the S&P 500 market index, has opened without too much drama. In fact, the index is up more than one percentage point right now. A few more words from the US Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell this week, though, and who knows what could happen.
As for the crypto market, it’s down about two per cent from this time yesterday, but in better shape than it appeared at the start of the weekend just passed.
All coins in the top 10 by market cap, aside from Terra (LUNA), are within about a percentage point or so to the positive or negative compared with this time on Sunday. And the fact that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are both looking a fair bit healthier than a couple of days ago, at present, is cause for at least some temporary encouragement.
LUNA, by the way, having mooned past Dogecoin into the top 10, has pulled back a little bit – a bit of buyer exhaustion there, perhaps. It’s currently down 8.5% in the past 24 hours.
Perhaps hinting at the possibility this bull market ain’t done yet, there are the odd few double-digit gainers in the top 100 standing out today, including: OKB (OKB) +13.8%; PancakeSwap (CAKE) +11.5%; BitTorrent (BTT) +15%; Basic Attention Token (BAT) +11%; and Ecomi (OMI) +10%.
A Bitcoin crab market?
Some analysts, though, aren’t particularly sold on the idea that the crypto bull market will kick back into gear any time soon – at least not necessarily this month. There are, however, more crystal balls floating about Crypto Twitter than a fortune-teller convention. Copious grains of salt always required.
But here are some of the better known analysts predicting a bit of a crab (sideways) market for the meantime, including self-described possible cyborg, Kevin Svenson…
The wunderkind on-chain data genius Will Clemente, meanwhile, added in an ultimately positive resolution to the chop…
… while his fellow on-chain guru, the Kiwi-born Willy Woo, believes the OG crypto is “trading at a decent discount”.
Scott “the Wolf of All Streets” Melker believe’s Bitcoin could well “drive people nuts” for months, however, as it potentially ranges between its recent low of about US$42k and about the US$53k mark.
And if that sideways action does actually take place, or even if things do take more of a tumble from here, you can probably put a decent bet on that certain usual über-bullish suspects will be buying the Bitcoin dip. Heavily.
One of those will surely be El Salvador’s backwards-cap-wearing president Nayib Bukele, who provided the tweet of the month so far in response to the usual stuff from US gold bug Peter Schiff…
And lastly, for this section, a timely reminder from Benjamin “lengthening cycles, diminishing returns” Cowen about, well, a potential lengthening Bitcoin bull-market cycle…
Also making news: FTSE Russell developing broad crypto index
FTSE Russell, the company behind the benchmark index of the London stock exchange (the FTSE 100), is making a crypto move. A big one. Reports suggest that the firm is developing a crypto index containing 43 digital assets, to apparently sit alongside the FTSE 100 and Russell 2000 indexes.
FTSE Russell reportedly estimates that crypto will have a global market cap greater than US$3 trillion by 2025. Seeing as it’s more than two thirds of the way there now, true believers will probably view that as a somewhat conservative estimate.