Bitcoin falls alongside stocks after tagging $58K
The Bitcoin rally hit a speed bump last week, pushing prices down to $43K as the stock market dropped and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed the leading cryptoasset is “extremely inefficient for transactions.”
Yet as the market moved lower, institutional investors kept buying. MicroStrategy and Square completed Bitcoin purchases of $1 billion and $170 million respectively, and Dubai’s IBC Group pledged 100,000 Bitcoin to support Miami’s blockchain strategy.
Although most altcoins were caught in the market downturn, Cardano bucked the bearish trend with double digit gains. The smart contract platform’s cryptoasset surged 16% in the last week as other major cryptos sustained losses.
This Week’s Highlights
- Cardano bucks the trend
- Bitcoin makes biggest daily drop ever
Cardano bucks the trend
Cardano’s stellar performance follows a stratospheric 2,000% surge over the last 12 months, which has seen it outstrip rivals like Binance Coin to become the third largest cryptoasset as measured by market cap.
The blockchain’s developers announced last week that the ‘Mary‘ update will launch on March 1st. This will allow users to create their own tokens on the blockchain, potentially helping Cardano pull market share from other smart contract platforms to accommodate the growing DeFi ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Ethereum has suffered 20% losses over the past week amid rising dissatisfaction with high network fees.
Bitcoin makes biggest daily drop ever
Following record highs, Bitcoin has made a record-breaking pullback. The cryptoasset fell from a high of $58K to a low of $47.7K last Monday — the largest price drop ever in a single day.
Though Bitcoin has dropped by more than 20% on several occasions, this was the biggest single-day fall ever in dollar terms, with the coin losing $10K in value.
Nevertheless, the bounce was equally strong. The cryptoasset gained over 10% in 10 minutes as buyers stepped into the market with a vengeance.
The week ahead
Despite dipping almost 20% from the peak at $58K, Bitcoin is still firmly in bull market territory. During the 2017 bull market, retracements moved the price 30-40% lower, before the trend resumed.
According to blockchain data sourced by Ki Young Ju, CEO of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant, dip buyers are already moving into the market. Transaction flows suggest institutions are continuing to accumulate Bitcoin at the discounted prices.
Nevertheless, experienced traders might be more cautious in the coming week. Historically, March has not been friendly to Bitcoin, with the cryptoasset falling six times during this month over the past seven years.