Bitcoin Price Projected To Crash To $70,000 As Crypto Markets Trump Optimism Wanes

The ongoing trade tariff war, stagflation talk and rush to safe haven are also turning investors away from the crypto market amidst projections of bitcoin, the flagship digital currency, crashing to as low as $70,000 in the coming weeks, market experts said.

Bitcoin was trading at $79,448 in the morning trading hours on Tuesday, more than three per cent down from yesterday.

The price of bitcoin surged to over $109,000 just hours ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 – an all-time high – and was speculated to soar to much higher levels as the US President unveils more industry-friendly policy actions.

Over the weekend, the Kobeissi Letter noted that crypto’s decline signals a growing risk-off sentiment.

Market participants said the latest Crypto Fear & Greed Index shows market sentiment has plunged back into the “extreme fear” zone after a brief recovery early last week in the run-up to Friday’s crypto summit in Washington.

“The crypto market continues to exhibit risk-on behaviour, with investor sentiment remaining cautious despite key developments,” Agne Linge, Head of Growth at WeFi, a decentralised on-chain bank, told Arabian Business.

“Since volatility set in on March 3, there has been no slowdown in selloffs despite the announcement of a Bitcoin reserve,” Linge said.

Market players said volatility may persist this week, with two key US inflation reports on the horizon.

If inflation continues to rise, the data could influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy and further impact Bitcoin’s price action, they said.

Crypto market expected to witness high volatility in the near term

Sector experts said the crypto market is expected to witness high volatility in the near term, with the Bitcoin Volmex 30-Day Implied Volatility Index signalling the potential for further price fluctuations throughout March.

These trends have made the market edgy, they said.

The recent sell-off has led to the broader crypto market losing over $1 trillion in market capitalisation from its peak, according to CoinGecko.

Its data showed that since February, investors have withdrawn a net $4.4 billion from the group of US Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds), which played a key role in the token’s record run last year.

Market experts said Trump’s executive order last week to create a US Bitcoin reserve and a separate stockpile of other tokens, along with a high-profile summit with industry executives in Washington on Friday (March 7), has done little to lift market sentiment.

While the administration pledged to capitalise on the reserve with crypto seized in legal proceedings, the absence of fresh capital commitments disappointed investors.

The market perceived the summit as underwhelming and top cryptocurrencies dropped after it was revealed that the widely anticipated crypto reserve would only hold existing government holdings, they said.

The US currently owns about $17 billion worth of Bitcoin and about $400 million worth of several other tokens, largely attributable to asset forfeitures related to civil and criminal cases.

Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at crypto exchange BTSE, hinted that Bitcoin could very well drop to the $70,000-$80,000 range in the coming weeks.

Only when this tariff war ends and the US Fed resumes cutting rates will top cryptocurrencies resume trending towards previous all-time highs, MEI said.

Trump’s Bitcoin reserve plans fail to impress investors

WeFi’s Linge said the same factors that triggered the earlier crypto market downturn remain in play currently as well.

“The ongoing trade war between the United States, China, Mexico, and Canada, continues to weigh on investor sentiment.

“The escalation of tariffs is expected to drive inflationary pressures, raising the possibility of broader macroeconomic fallout in the coming weeks,” Linge said.

Market players said beyond the worrying developments on the macroeconomic front, other factors are also contributing to market uncertainty.

The Bitcoin reserve reveal did not impress investors as expected, as many believe the plan to seed the strategic Bitcoin reserve with seized BTC over the years will not add much value to the market, they said.

“The exact outlook for altcoins remains unknown, while the only positive take at the recently concluded Crypto Summit is hinging on stablecoin regulation later this year,” the senior executive at a Mumbai-based digital asset exchange said.

Nikolay Karpenko, director at B2C2, wrote that while Trump’s strategic crypto reserve announcement initially drove optimism, the rally quickly unravelled amid aggressive selling linked to worsening macro conditions.

Investors are rationally more bullish on crypto given recent developments such as the reduced US Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement, but other factors are more nuanced or even negative, Bloomberg quoted Ari Paul, co-founder of BlockTower Capital, as saying.

“The apparent capricious favouritism in the administration’s selection of assets for the strategic reserve – especially after the launching of Trump and Melania coins – is a strong deterrent to investors,” Paul said in a message, adding that “it’s created the impression that the Trump administration is engaged in the lobbying-based selection and promotion of ‘insider’ assets, and that the cryptocurrency market today is largely a short-term trading casino.”