BTC starts 2022 all over again — 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week and a new quarter as if it were starting the new year — at just over $46,000.

In what will seem like some serious deja-vu for hodlers, BTC/USD is at practically the same level it was on Jan. 1, 2022.

Price action has been quiet — too quiet, perhaps — in recent days, but behind the declining volatility, there are signs that the market is busy deciding future direction.

From macro to on-chain, there are in fact plenty of cues to keep an eye on in April, amid a backdrop of Bitcoin — at least so far — retaining its yearly open price as support.

Cointelegraph takes a look at five of these factors as they pertain to BTC price performance over the coming week.

There has been much talk of the end of the post-COVID “easy money” period and the impact it’ll have on risk assets such as Bitcoin.

As the United States Federal Reserve pledges to reduce its record high balance sheet and keep raising key rates, commentators have sounded the alarm over what could be a shockwave hitting investment into crypto.

So far, however, there is little sign that a fundamental shift is underway, while in Asia this week, it seems like the opposite is true.

As highlighted by markets commentator Holger Zschaepitz, Japan’s central bank, the Bank of Japan (BoJ), has in fact added to its balance sheet but printing even more liquidity.

The BoJ already had the largest balance sheet relative to GDP, and that trend is only increasing, now at 136% of GDP.

For Zschaepitz, this is not only a surprise, but could be “the biggest monetary experiment in history.”

“In comparison, the ECB and the Fed look like amateurs,” he argued.

If more printing means more good times for risk assets, meanwhile, not everyone is even convinced that the long-vaunted