Bitcoin price can’t find its footing, but BTC fundamentals inspire confidence in traders
Bitcoin’s (BTC) sudden crash on Jan. 10 caused the price to trade below $40,000 for the first time in 110 days and this was a wake-up call to leveraged traders. $1.9 billion worth of long (buy) futures contracts were liquidated that week, causing the morale among traders to plunge.
The crypto "Fear & Greed" index, which ranges from 0 "extreme fear" to 100 "greed" reached 10 on Jan. 10, the lowest level it has been since the Mar. 2020 crash. The indicator measures traders' sentiment using historical volatility, market momentum, volume, Bitcoin dominance and social media.
As usual, the panic turned out to be a buying opportunity because the total crypto market capitalization rose by 13.5%, going from a $1.85 trillion bottom to $2.1 trillion in less than three days.
Currently, investors seem to be digesting this week’s economic data that shows United States December 2021 retail sales going down by 1.9% compared to the previous month.
Investors have reason to worry about stagflation, a scenario where inflation accelerates despite the lack of economic growth. However, even if this eventually proves that Bitcoin’s digital scarcity is a positive characteristic, markets will still take shelter with whatever asset is deemed safe. Thus, the first wave will potentially be damaging for cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin price was flat over the past seven days, effectively underperforming the altcoin market's 7% gain. Part of this unusual movement can be explained by layer-1 decentralized applications platforms showing a positive performance that was driven by Fantom (FTM), Cardano (ADA), Near Protocol (NEAR) and Harmony (ONE).
Loopring (LRC), a zkRollup open protocol for decentralized exchanges on Ethereum, presented the worst performance of the
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