The crypto industry’s hopes for a new Bitcoin (BTC) rise during last week’s Bitcoin 2022 event in Miami were dashed; the leading cryptocurrency fell below $42,000 on Monday morning, to levels last seen on March 22.
Bitcoin is currently selling at $41,532, according to CoinMarketCap, with the benchmark cryptocurrency down 2.36 percent in the previous 24 hours and 9.65% in the last week.
Several significant announcements were made at the Bitcoin 2022 conference, which drew thousands of crypto enthusiasts and executives from dozens of Bitcoin-focused companies, including Cash App’s direct deposit feature, which allows employees to receive wages in Bitcoin, and Lightning Network-based crypto payment platform Strike’s integration with e-commerce giant Shopify.
Unlike last year’s gathering, when El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, announced that his country would accept Bitcoin as legal cash, none of the news from this year’s conference has worked to enhance the price of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, as the 7-day chart illustrates, Bitcoin peaked above $47,000 on April 5, only to plummet in the days that followed. A brief rally above $43,300 also failed to result in a sustained breakout.
The rest of the crypto market has followed suit, with Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, down 5% on the day and currently trading at $3,076.
The price of Ethereum has dropped by more than 11% in the previous seven days, with former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes forecasting that by the end of June, ETH may possibly reach the $2,500 mark.
While admitting that “there isn’t much science to these numbers other than a gut feeling,” Hayes pointed to the fact that both BTC and ETH are “highly correlated” to the tech-focused Nasdaq 100 (NDX) stock market index, which is down 3.87% since last Tuesday.
“If the NDX tanks, it will take crypto down with it,” wrote Hayes in a blog post.
The former BitMEX chief also expects broader “crypto carnage” that will take the price of Bitcoin as low as $30,000.
Elsewhere, Terra’s LUNA is the hardest hit among the top 10 cryptocurrencies, dropping 8.17% on the day, followed by Avalanche’s AVAX, which slipped 7.39%
