The price stability of Bitcoin does not please the participants of the crypto market at all. Such a lull is perceived as a harbinger of a storm. High volatility of Bitcoin has always been its characteristic feature, and the tendency to rapid growth attracted speculators hoping for a quick profit. Periods of calm and movement in narrow trading ranges often ended with fierce sales. Now is exactly such a moment: Bitcoin is squeezed in a narrow trading corridor with a sequence of declining highs.
Approaching the round value at $30K and its subsequent breakdown can trigger an avalanche of sell orders, while buyers this time may not be in a hurry to help the reference cryptocurrency. Many participants of the crypto market are morally ready to see new lows for Bitcoin before new long-term purchases.
Bitcoin starts the working week with a slight decrease of 1% and is trading around $32,000. Another alarming sign for the first cryptocurrency was a pause in the growth of the hashrate. Miners are moving after new active actions by the Chinese authorities. And over the course of this process, it becomes clear that it turns out to be much more complex and expensive. The hashrate in the Bitcoin network has not recovered to its peak values and is currently at the levels of the end of October 2019. This should soon be followed by an automatic reduction in complexity. It is generally believed that the price of Bitcoin follows the hashrate/difficulty of mining, so the investment prospects are still deteriorating.
The S&P 500 correction may make a negative contribution to the short-term dynamics of the crypto market. In this case, the correlation of the benchmark stock index and Bitcoin may well show its full potential, since similar cautious moods prevail in both markets.
Among the positive things for the market, we can note the announcement of PayPal about increasing the weekly limit for the purchase of cryptocurrency from $20K to $100K, as well as the abolition of annual purchase limits. This applies only to American users of the payment system, although, given the fundamental role of the United States in the formation of the cryptocurrency market, such news may well support the market globally.
Since the peak values of this year, the total capitalization of the crypto market has fallen by exactly half to $1.27 trillion. Without serious support, we will probably continue to observe a decline in the crypto market up to values that will seem attractive to large investors for opening large positions.