- The price of Bitcoin fell to new lows following the outbreak of a new strain of the Covid virus.
- Bitcoin barely recovered from the slump on Thanksgiving before being battered by the general panic selling by traders.
- Bitcoin is down 20% from its all-time high providing a viable opportunity for traders to buy the dip.
The Omicron, Covid’s latest variant, is threatening human lives globally and also advancing into crypto prices. The markets took a big hit with several assets shedding a large portion of their values.
Knee-Jerk Reaction? Or Not
On Thanksgiving day, cyberspace was rife with jokes about Black Friday sales as Bitcoin turned in a lackluster performance again. Things went from bad to worse with the announcement of the discovery of a new Covid variant, Omicron that sent the markets into chaos.
Since the revelation, Bitcoin fell to $53,668, a price level that was unseen since the start of October. The asset’s decline shows an 8% fall in the last week and a 20% decline since BTC set its all-time high of $68,789 nearly three weeks ago.
Asides from BTC, other crypto-assets fell victim to the onslaught with Ether, BNB, Cardano, Solana and others shedding over 5% of their values in 24 hours. The decline brings the global cryptocurrency market capitalization to $2.44 trillion from highs of $2.6 trillion. With Bitcoin in bearish markets, this could be the second consecutive negative week for the asset.
Voyager Digital’s CEO, Stephen Ehrlich sees the latest sell-off as merely a knee-jerk reaction to the news. “This is just a short-term knee-jerk reaction to what is going on in the market but we’re seeing more and more money piling in into buying today,” said Ehrlich to CNBC.
The CEO noted that investors are buying the dip on the Voyager platform with a heavy interest in Cardano, Solana, Avalanche amongst others. Ehrlich noted that families might have had cryptocurrency conversations over thanksgiving dinner, which could spark more buying by retail investors.
Macro-Driven
Analysts have called the decline a “macro-driven sell-off” following the massive decline in the value of cryptocurrency assets. The stock markets have not fared better as well as they also took a major hit following the rise of the Omicron strain.
Wall Street Dow Jones Index fell by 2.8% while the FTSE 100 index recorded its worst trading day since the start of the year. England’s biggest banks like Lloyds Bank, NatWest, and Barclays tumbled by over 7% with the trend extending to other markets in Europe and Asia. Countries have banned flights from countries with early outbreaks of the Omicron variant like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Namibia.
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