Bitcoin & Crypto Fall as Market Awaits US Inflation Numbers, ‘Overvalued’ Tech Stocks Worry Traders
The crypto market traded lower over the weekend, with US inflation data, possible moves by the US Federal Reserve (Fed), and bearish-looking technology stocks all weighing on investors’ sentiment and causing worry about the way forward.
On Monday at noon UTC, bitcoin (BTC) was down by 3.7% for the past 24 hours and by more than 11% for the past week, trading at USD 41,099. At the same time, ethereum (ETH) was down 6% for the past day and more than 13% for the week to a price of USD 3,057.
The moves over the weekend followed last week's signals from the Fed that the central bank will not let up on its planned tightening measures.
Commenting on the outlook for the US economy, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said that she believes a US recession can be avoided even as the Fed continues to tighten. “It’ll be challenging, but we can do it,” she said, per a Bloomberg report.
Perhaps surprisingly, the major industry conference Bitcoin 2022, held in Miami from Thursday to Saturday last week, did not translate into excitement among bitcoin traders.
Leading up to the event, BTC fell hard on Wednesday, before trimming some of its losses as the conference kicked off on Thursday. As of Friday, however, the bears came back in force to push the coin down again, with selling continuing on Sunday and Monday morning in Europe.
As usual, the selling over the weekend led to spikes in liquidations of leveraged bitcoin derivatives traders on exchanges. According to data from Coinglass, more than USD 40m of bitcoin long positions were liquidated during 12-hour periods on both Friday and Monday.
The liquidations followed a USD 60m liquidation of long bitcoin positions in 12 hours as the market fell hard on Wednesday last week.
Notably, the moves
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