The situation in the cryptocurrency market is similar to the one before the recent Fed meetings. The macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have had a great impact on the stock and cryptocurrency markets, so the inflow of money in risk instruments terminated. As a result, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market fell by 4%.
A drop came due to the flat movement of major assets. However, David Kelly, a senior JPMorgan strategist, assumes the cryptocurrency market may go through the toughest time in its history soon. He predicts expect to see massive losses in crypto as the Fed hikes interest rates.
Cryptocurrencies are likely to plunge even further as the US regulator raises interest rates and brings an era of "crazy" speculation to an end, according to the senior JPMorgan strategist. The Fed's pandemic-era stimulus prompted investors to turn to highly speculative investments such as cryptocurrencies and increased their correlation with traditional stocks. Therefore, the cryptocurrency market is likely to suffer as the US central bank resorts to aggressive measures.
Nevertheless, there are a few crucial factors that could allow the market to stay aloft. In 2022, about 7 rate hikes are expected, according to Goldman Sachs. This means that the Fed intends to maintain stability in markets and tighten monetary policy one step at a time, which will allow risk assets to incur small losses.
Apart from that, JPMorgan experts said BTC's ability to hedge risks triggered a rally in 2021. It can be assumed that this was due to rising inflation and the economic stimulus program. But if you track investors' behavior over the past 2-3 weeks, you can see a significant outflow of funds from altcoins to BTC. Amid geopolitical and macro risks, investors have almost completely left the cryptocurrency market, but demand for bitcoin has maintained.
At the same time, gold scored gains and even updated its local high. All these factors indicate that the flagship cryptocurrency and gold are used as risk-hedging tools. Moreover, the economic stimulus program is no longer operating as it did in 2021.
The correlation between bitcoin and the SPX and NASDAQ started to decrease. At the same time, the volatility of BTC is much lower than that of stock indices. This also proves the relevance of bitcoin amid tense economic circumstances and the impending tightening of monetary policy. Given all that, we should expect the value of cryptocurrencies to gradually decrease as the Fed tightens policy, but not a plunge.
BTC traded in the narrow range of $42K-$44.7K. The price failed to break above the range. Otherwise, the volume of long positions would increase and the quote would hear towards the $48.6K target. Nevertheless, the price might leave this range in the near future.
Yesterday, BTC/USD bounced off the upper limit of the narrow range. The pair came under strong bearish pressure. The RSI and Stochastic moved down. A breakout of the lower limit was expected with the target in the range of $41.2K-$36.5K.
On the H4 chart, bullish activity increased near the lower limit of the range. The RSI and Stochastic reversed and the bearish candlestick had a long lower shadow. A false breakout at $45K was expected.
