On Wednesday, Bitcoin began the trading session with a strong uptrend, starting the morning at $26,797.
According to CoinMarketCap, the BTC price fluctuated between $26,910 at its lowest and $27,285 at its highest over the past 24 hours.
On Tuesday, the cryptocurrency market was under bearish pressure. Bitcoin closed the day at $27,067, posting a 1.25% loss. This pessimism also impacted the leading cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market capitalization, most of which saw a drop in their prices as well.
However, Bitcoin had a more favorable Monday, closing the session at $27,439 with a 1.91% increase.
The key factor in Tuesday's downturn, following Monday's optimistic performance, was the slump in US stock market indices. During Tuesday's trading session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1.01%, the S&P 500 lost 0.64%, and the NASDAQ Composite declined by 0.18%.
Notably, experts have recently pointed out a decrease in the correlation between the cryptocurrency and stock markets in the ongoing year, considering the current sideways movement of Bitcoin's price.
This was reported by analysts from the American investment company Bernstein at the end of February. Over the past month, the correlation between Bitcoin and the NASDAQ Composite Index plunged to 0.58 from 0.94.
According to Bernstein's experts, the cryptocurrency market has recently been teetering between bull and bear trends, awaiting further catalysts. Moreover, its susceptibility to significant news and events in the financial world has noticeably decreased.
At the start of 2022, analysts often highlighted the high correlation between the American stock market and the digital asset market, as both were anticipating the outcomes of the geopolitical conflict in Eastern Europe and the future actions of the US Federal Reserve. For instance, in the middle of last year, economists from the investment company Arcane Research asserted that the correlation between Bitcoin and tech stocks had peaked since July 2020.
Meanwhile, economists from the analytical platform TradingView stated that the correlation between the cryptocurrency market and the US stock market in the fourth quarter of 2022 was around 70%.
Altcoin market
Ethereum also started Wednesday on the rise, trading at $1,826 at the time of writing the article. After a slight 0.22% dip on Tuesday, Ethereum ended the trading session unchanged.
As for the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, XRP outperformed the rest with a 7.59% increase in the past 24 hours, while BNB underperformed slightly, with a minor 0.08% drop.
Over the past week, Bitcoin led the decline amongst the top 10 cryptocurrencies, falling by 2.54%, while XRP spearheaded the rise, increasing by 5.86%.
According to data from CoinGecko, the world's largest aggregator of digital asset information, Decentraland token saw the highest increase amongst the top 100 most capitalized digital assets in the past day, rising by 13.06%. In contrast, Kava experienced the largest decline, dropping by 5.93%.
Over the last week, Conflux, amongst the top 100 strongest cryptocurrencies, showed the best performance with a 23.10% increase, while Pepe underperformed the most, decreasing by 18.53%.
According to CoinGecko, as of Wednesday morning, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies stands above the crucial $1 trillion level, standing at $1.088 trillion. This figure has declined by 0.74% over the past day.
Since hitting its peak above $3 trillion in 2021, the cryptocurrency market capitalization has lost nearly $2 trillion.
Crypto experts' forecasts
As for analysts' predictions for Bitcoin's immediate future, most anticipate a positive scenario and speak of the digital coin's resilience.
Crypto experts suggest that in the short term, BTC's price will be hovering in the range of $27,000-$28,500. They believe that Bitcoin has every chance to overcome the bearish trend, but it will need strong catalysts, currently absent in the market.
YouTube analyst Jason Pizzino is even more optimistic. He asserts that even unfavorable market events will not stop Bitcoin's rally, and soon the coin will trade in the range of $32,000-$42,000.
Arthur Hayes, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, shares this view. He is confident that regardless of the financial course the Federal Reserve and US authorities take, BTC will reach new price peaks. In Hayes' opinion, this will happen both under conditions of high inflation and increased interest rates, and in case of declining inflation and reduced interest rates.
In April, BTC fell almost 10%. In contrast, in the past March, the coin's value soared by 22.6%, marking its third consecutive month of growth amid the normalization of the banking crisis.
Last February, the first cryptocurrency closed with an increase of 0.9% - up to $23,200, and in the first month of 2023 it gained almost 40% in price, making January the best month since October 2021. By the way, January-March of this year was the best quarter for the coin since the beginning of 2021, and BTC became one of the most profitable assets.
The main reason for the growth of the digital currency market since the beginning of 2023 was the impending crisis in the traditional financial market. Today, securities and bonds are going through a rather difficult period. That is why we see a constantly growing desire of investors around the world to invest in virtual currencies.