Bitcoin slid by almost 6% on Wednesday, having posted its worst monthly performance in April since late 2022, as investors pulled money out of cryptocurrencies ahead of an interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve later.
The value of the world’s most traded cryptocurrency fell by nearly 16% in April, as investors booked profits on a sizzling rally that has taken the price to record highs above $70,000.

Bitcoin fell by as much as 5.6% to its lowest since late February. It was last down 4.8% at $57,001, while losses in ether were more modest, down 3.6% at $2,857, also at its weakest since February.

The price of bitcoin is now a full 22% below March’s record of $73,803, technically putting it in a bear market. But it is still up 35% so far this year and double where it was this time last year, thanks in large part to the billions of dollars flowing into newly minted exchange-traded funds since January.

“The recent downtrend can be attributed to increased profit-taking by investors who entered the market during the downturns of 2022 and 2023, as well as ETF investors who witnessed significant price appreciation on their shares after entering the market in the early weeks of 2024,” Fineqia research analyst Matteo Greco said.

Crypto-related stocks fell in U.S. premarket trading. Shares in crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN.O)

, opens new tab fell 4.6%, while those in miners Riot (RIOT.O), opens new tab and Marathon Digital (MARA.O), opens new tab dropped 4.2-4.3%.

The dire market conditions for all cryptocurrencies continue and have even worsened in the past few hours, as bitcoin dumped to another multi-month low of around $57,000.

The altcoins have followed suit with massive losses, and the total market cap has lost well over $200 billion in the past 36 hours or so.

A lot can change in the ever-volatile cryptocurrency space in the span of a few days. Focusing only on the past few days, we can see that bitcoin’s price headed toward $65,000 on Monday morning but failed to overcome that level, and the following 36 hours have been quite brutal.

It all began with an immediate price drop to $62,000. That was no surprise, as the asset had fallen to that level on a few occasions in the past month. However, another decline followed that drove the primary cryptocurrency to a two-month low of $59,100, as reported last night.

After a brief pump, BTC headed straight south again in the past 1-2 hours. This time, the bears pushed it down to just over $57,000 as of now, which is the lowest price tag since February 28. The latest nosedive comes on the heels of the upcoming US FOMC meeting, which is something that typically leads to lots of volatility in the market.

BTC is currently 9% down on the day and 14% lower than this time last week. Its market capitalization has plunged to $1.130 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts stands tall at 50.5%.

It’s no surprise that most alternative coins have followed BTC on the way down. Ethereum stood above $3,200 after the Hong Kong spot ETFs went live yesterday but has plummeted by more than $300 since then to under $2,900. Binance Coin lost the $600 level and is now down to $550.

Even more daily losses are evident from SOL, DOGE, TON, SHIB, AVAX, BCH, NEAR, and many others, who have plunged by double digits.

The total crypto market cap has slumped to $2.240 trillion. This means that the metric has shed over $200 billion since Monday morning, and it is at its lowest since February as well.

The price of Bitcoin plunged to nearly $60,000 per coin on Tuesday afternoon, prompting liquidations for the positions of those betting on the price of the asset to go up.

CoinGlass data shows that in the past 24 hours, over $261 million in long positions for all cryptocurrencies have been liquidated. Including short positions, total liquidations stand at over $324 million.

In the past four hours alone, the figure stands at nearly $70 million—$24.4 million of which were positions in Bitcoin.

Currently, the price of Bitcoin sits at $60,309 per data from CoinGecko, though crypto exchange Coinbase shows that it dipped as low as $60,012 not long ago. Ethereum, meanwhile, is down to $2,985 as of this writing, down 6% over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin’s daily dip stands at just under 4% as of this writing.

In the world of derivatives, long positions are held by traders who put cash on betting that the price of an asset will go up in the future.

Bitcoin in March hit a new all-time high of nearly $74,000, according to CoinGecko data. It’s previous all-time high set in 2021 was $69,044.

Part of the reason for the rise in price was that new investors could get exposure to the asset via spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January.

Bitcoin has left a trail of $255 million worth of liquidations in its wake after it suddenly plummeted to $61,000 yesterday and took the rest of the market with it. The Bitcoin price has shown some signs of recovery since yesterday, hitting a peak of just under $63,000 early Thursday.

BTC is currently changing hands for around $62,750, down only 0.1% in the past 24 hours and 11.1% lower than it was this time last week, per data from CoinGecko.

But signs that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer, along with geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East, are scaring investors away from risk assets like cryptocurrencies.

The new spot Bitcoin ETFs are also not as hot as they were following their launch and investors have been cashing out of the vehicles, helping push the price of the biggest digital coin down further.

An experienced market analyst has sounded a note of warning that Bitcoin could soon drop to as low as $59,000 as the crypto reaches its cycle peak.  

According to CryptoPotato, Peter Schiff, a successful American stockbroker and Bitcoin critic, warned that the current price level of Bitcoin won’t hold as the coin has reached its cycle peak.

He identified $60,000 as a key resistance level and warned of a significant potential decline if this is not overcome.  

Bitcoin’s price has been hovering around $64,000-$67,000 in the past few days. Crypto enthusiasts believe a rally is coming due to the halving event that just took place last weekend in the United States.  

However, some analysts are forecasting bearish trends for Bitcoin. An example is a popular crypto influencer and Trader, Ali Martinez, who believes a further plunge below $63,300 may trigger a price downfall to $61,000 or even a two-month low of $59,000.  

Another crypto trader known as Mikybull Crypto tweeted on X that he is afraid the leading digital asset has reached its cycle top and could only retreat from now.  

 Schiff, one of the harshest critics of Bitcoin, claims that the asset’s current condition is not looking good for bitcoin holders. He pinpointed the $60,000 level as a major resistance zone, or otherwise, BTC is going a long way down. 

This is not the first time Peter Schiff has predicted doom for Bitcoin, He recently predicted that the approval of the spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) by the United States SEC would halt the BTC rally.  

However, the price of BTC has rebounded from $46,000 when the SEC approved the Spot Bitcoin ETF to $64,000 at the time of filling this report.  

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked stronger BTC price momentum over the weekend.

After putting in weekly lows of $62,400, BTC/USD reversed and managed to maintain higher ground, circling $63,500 at the time of writing.

Altcoins also performed well for “out-of-hours” trading, with the total altcoin market cap up around 1% on the day.

“Alts bounced very nicely but still have to break the trend of setting week highs around monday to tuesday,” popular trader Skew responded on X, referencing recent market patterns.

Skew nonetheless suspected that sell-side pressure would step in on Bitcoin around range highs, keeping bulls from advancing much higher.
Source: Skew

Continuing on altcoins, trader and commentator Moustache was willing to bet on a full-fledged “altseason” entering next, this rivaling anything seen since the market’s ascent to all-time highs in 2017.

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The monthly dominance chart for the largest stablecoin Tether
attempting a reclaim after breaking below a rising trendline this year, he suggested, was merely a “backtest.”

“When USDT.D goes down, Altcoins go up,” he wrote.

“Biggest Altseason since 2017 is loading imo.”

Others thus awaited the start of “TradFi” trading, including Bitcoin futures, for further cues as to the crypto market trajectory.

“Weekend price action so far so good,” fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades told X followers.

“Doubt we see any meaningful move from $BTC from this point until after CME opens back up.”

“Very bullish” BTC price structure keeps bull market on radar

Despite consolidating in a range still below previous cycle all-time highs, Bitcoin did not disappoint everyone.

For trader Alan Tardigrade, the monthly BTC/USD chart looked promising.

“On monthly chart, Bitcoin is still sitting above the Triangle Top, which is very Bullish,” he argued in a recent X analysis.

“To have a long and solid Bull Run in the future, Consolidation is necessary to be built up.”

An accompanying chart compared Bitcoin now to a pre-breakout period for the Nasdaq Composite Index (IXIC) in 2013.

Bitcoin’s long-anticipated ‘halving’ is, depending on where you sit, a vital event that will burnish the cryptocurrency’s value as an increasingly scarce commodity, or little more than a technical change talked up by speculators to inflate its price.

The halving comes after bitcoin hit an all-time high of $73,803.25 in March .
B
ut what exactly is the halving, and does it really matter?

WHAT IS IT?

The halving, which happens roughly every four years, the latest of which is expected this week, is a change in bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology designed to reduce the rate at which new bitcoins are created.

Bitcoin was designed from its inception by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto to have a capped supply of 21 million tokens.

Nakamoto wrote the halving into bitcoin’s code and it works by reducing the rate at which new bitcoin are released into circulation.

So far, about 19 million tokens have been released.

HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?

Blockchain technology involves creating records of information – called ‘blocks’ – which are added to the chain in a process called ‘mining’.

Miners use computing power to solve complex mathematical puzzles to build the blockchain and earn rewards in the form of new bitcoin.

The blockchain is designed so that a halving occurs every time 210,000 blocks are added to the chain, roughly every four years.

At the halving, the amount of bitcoin available as rewards for miners is cut in half. This makes mining less profitable and slows the production of new bitcoins.

The former billionaire and founder of a defunct cryptocurrency exchange was found guilty by a jury last November of stealing $8 billion from customers of FTX, the exchange he founded in what prosecutors said was one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.

WHAT HAS IT GOT TO DO WITH BITCOIN’S PRICE?

Some bitcoin enthusiasts say that bitcoin’s scarcity gives it value.

The lower the supply of a commodity, all other things being equal, the price should rise when people try and buy more. Bitcoin is no different, they argue.

Others dispute the logic, noting that any impact would have already been factored in to the price.

The supply of bitcoin to the market is also largely down to crypto miners but the sector is opaque, with data on inventories and supplies scarce. If miners sell their reserves, that could pressure prices lower.

Since hitting record highs last month, bitcoin’s price has sunk below $64,000. JP Morgan analysts said this week they expect the price to fall further after the halving.
Establishing the reasons for a crypto rally is also hard, not least as there is far less transparency than in other markets.

The most common reason given for this year’s surge is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s January approval of bitcoin ETFs, and expectations that central banks will cut interest rates.

But in the speculative world of crypto trading, explanations for price changes can snowball into market narratives that become self-fulfilling.

WHAT ABOUT PREVIOUS HALVINGS?

There’s no evidence to suggest that previous halvings have been behind bitcoin’s subsequent price rises.
Still, traders and miners have studied past halvings to try and gain an edge.

When the last halving happened on May 11, 2020, the price rose around 12% in the following week and 659% in the following 12 months.

But there were many explanations for the rally – including loose monetary policy and stay-at-home retail investors with spare cash – and no real evidence the halving was behind it.

An earlier halving occurred in July 2016. Bitcoin rose around 1.3% in the following week, before plunging a few weeks later and then rallying.

In short: it’s hard to isolate the impact, if any, halvings may have had previously or predict what could happen this time around.

Regulators have repeatedly warned that bitcoin is a speculative market driven by hype and one that poses harm to investors.

Bitcoin, launched in 2009, was the first of a new kind of asset called cryptocurrency, a decentralized form of digital cash that eliminates the need for traditional intermediaries like banks and governments. Bitcoin can be used as a currency or an investment.
 

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Takeaways

Bitcoin is a form of digital currency that uses blockchain technology to support transactions between users on a decentralized network.

New Bitcoins are created as part of the mining process, as a reward to people whose computer systems help validate transactions.

Buying Bitcoin exposes you to a volatile asset class. There are many pros and cons to consider about whether it's right for your portfolio.

If you decide to buy Bitcoin, you’ll need a place to store it — like a hot or cold wallet.

Bitcoin is a form of digital currency that aims to eliminate the need for central authorities such as banks or governments. Instead, Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to support peer-to-peer transactions between users on a decentralized network.

Transactions are authenticated through Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism, which rewards cryptocurrency miners for validating transactions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has officially approved a spot Bitcoin ETF. Learn what that means for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Launched in 2009 by a mysterious developer known as Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin (BTC) was the first, and remains the most valuable, entrant in the emerging class of assets known as cryptocurrencies.

Each Bitcoin is a digital asset that can be stored at a cryptocurrency exchange or in a digital wallet. Each individual coin represents the value of Bitcoin’s current price, but you can also own partial shares of each coin. The smallest denomination of each Bitcoin is called a Satoshi, sharing its name with Bitcoin’s creator. Each Satoshi is equivalent to a hundred millionth of one Bitcoin, so owning fractional shares of Bitcoin is quite common.

Blockchain: Bitcoin is powered by open-source code known as blockchain, which creates a shared public history of transactions organized into "blocks" that are "chained" together to prevent tampering. This technology creates a permanent record of each transaction, and it provides a way for every Bitcoin user to operate with the same understanding of who owns what.

Private and public keys: A Bitcoin wallet contains a public key and a private key, which work together to allow the owner to initiate and digitally sign transactions. This unlocks the central function of Bitcoin — securely transferring ownership from one user to another.

Bitcoin mining: Users on the Bitcoin network verify transactions through a process known as mining, which is designed to confirm that new transactions are consistent with other transactions that have been completed in the past. This ensures that you can’t spend a Bitcoin you don’t have, or that you have previously spent.

New Bitcoins are created as part of the Bitcoin mining process, in which they are offered as a lucrative reward to people who operate computer systems that help to validate transactions. Bitcoin miners — also known as “nodes” — are the owners of high speed computers which independently confirm each transaction, and add a completed “block” of transactions to the ever-growing “chain.” The resulting blockchain is a complete, public and permanent record of every Bitcoin transaction.

Miners are then paid in Bitcoin for their efforts, which incentivizes the decentralized network to independently verify each transaction. This independent network of miners also decreases the chance for fraud or false information to be recorded, as the majority of miners need to confirm the authenticity of each block of data before it’s added to the blockchain in a process known as proof-of-work.

Buying cryptocurrency exposes you to a volatile asset class. A common rule of thumb is to devote only a small portion of a diversified portfolio to risky investments such as Bitcoin or individual stocks.

Whether or not Bitcoin is a good investment for you depends on your individual circumstances, but here are a few pros and cons of Bitcoin to consider.

Bitcoin [BTC] underwent its fourth halving earlier in the day and contrary to what you may think, miners have been celebrating ever since.

While the rewards given to miners for creating each block halved, they were more than compensated by an explosive surge in transaction fees paid by users.

According to AMBCrypto’s analysis of Mempool data, the iconic halving block – 840,000 – saw a whopping 37.62 BTCs in fees collected by miners, worth nearly $2.4 million at prevailing market prices. Combined with the slashed block subsidy of 3.12 BTCs, miners earned more than $2.6 million from the block. Several blocks after the halving also raked in more than a million in fees.

The total fees shot up dramatically, exceeding the Ordinals frenzy in December and just short of the all-time highs (ATH) hit in May 2023.

At the time of writing, fees per transaction were hovering between $50 and $60. In fact, more than 232,000 transactions were pending approval and memory usage exceeded 300 MB.

Popular Bitcoin market analyst Dylan LeClair linked the astronomical surge in fees to new token protocol, Runes, that went live with the halving block.

Developed by Casey Rodmarmor who also introduced the Bitcoin Ordinals concept last year, Runes also allows users to mint tokens on the Bitcoin chain. Unlike Ordinals inscriptions, however, every unit of Rune is the same, meaning they can be interchanged.

According to the Rune explorer, about 1171 Runes had been “etched” – the term given for their creation on the chain – at press time. Total transactions were approaching 44,000, with $12 million collected in fees.

Like Ordinals, the launch of Runes drove a wedge between Bitcoin purists and pragmatists. Dylan LeClair called Runes as “pure degenerate speculation”, offering no utility.

A crypto-trader moon complained about the complexities of the technology, describing it as “complete chaos.”

However, another X user uofreetepuppel, likely a proponent, called out the skeptics who raised concerns over Ordinals previously and Runes now.

Meanwhile, miners whose revenue streams got impacted after halving are not complaining one bit.

Gold bug Peter Schiff has once taken to social media to lambast Bitcoin, calling it “a failure.” This time, he took issue with the cryptocurrency’s exorbitant fees.

Schiff pointed to the fact that the cost of a single Bitcoin transaction soared to a whopping $128. This prevents the cryptocurrency from functioning as a viable digital currency, according to the market commentator.
“The cost to actually use Bitcoin as a currency is prohibitively high for almost all transactions. It’s a failure,” Shiff said. As reported by U.Today, Bitcoin generated an astonishing $78.3 million in fees on Apr. 20, dwarfing Ethereum’s fees.

Right after the halvening, miners managed to generate record-breaking revenues surpassing $100 million. The massive uptick in fees was caused by the launch of the Runes protocol, which allows creating fungible tokens on top of Bitcoin.

With that being said, it is unclear how sustainable the hype surrounding Runes is. According to data provided by YCharts, the average Bitcoin fee dropped to $34 on Apr. 21. While this is still high, miners might not be able to enjoy such profits for a long time following the halving event.

Tokenized gold?

Bitcoin has always been touted as a better alternative to gold due to how easy it is to transact it. However, Schiff has noted that the crypto king is currently unusable as a currency since it now takes over an hour to process a Bitcoin transaction.

Interestingly enough, Schiff argues that even gold can serve as a better currency if it gets tokenized, showing support for the very technology that underpins Bitcoin.
“People aren’t using gold as a currency right now. But if they wanted to, gold could be tokenized on a block chain. Transaction time would be almost instantaneous and cost minimal. Gold works much better on a block chain than Bitcoin,” he said.