Bitcoin (BTC) and the U.S. equity markets fell sharply on Jan. 5, reacting negatively to the minutes from the Federal Reserve's December FOMC meeting, which showed that the members expect the balance sheet reduction to start after the Fed begins hiking interest rates in early 2022.
Adding to the negative sentiment was the shutdown of the world’s second-biggest Bitcoin mining hub in Kazakhstan, where the internet has been shut down following massive protests by citizens. This caused a dip of about 13.4% in the Bitcoin network’s overall hash rate from 205,000 petahash per second (PH/s) to 177,330 PH/s.
According to Galaxy Digital Holdings CEO Mike Novogratz, the current decline was with low volumes and he believes that the markets will be volatile in the next few days. Novogratz suggests that a huge amount of “institutional demand” was waiting on the sidelines and he expects Bitcoin to bottom out in the $38,000 to $40,000 zone.
Could Bitcoin and major altcoins continue to face selling or will they bounce off strong support levels? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
The range-bound action in Bitcoin resolved to the downside on Jan. 5 when bears pulled the price below the strong support at $45,456. This suggests that supply exceeds demand.
There was a meek attempt to defend the $42,500 support on Jan. 6 but sustained selling has pulled the price close to the next support at $39,600. This leg down has invalidated the positive divergence that was forming on the relative strength index (RSI).
The downsloping moving averages and the RSI near the oversold zone suggest that bears are in control. If bears sink and sustain the price below $39,600, the BTC/USDT pair could nosedive to $30,000.
On the
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