Fear Still Dominates Crypto Market As 2022 Rises, Bitcoin Dabbles To $ 47,000
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index’s measuring “fear” seems to suggest that Bitcoin traders may have kicked off 2022 with cold feet. Bitcoin (BTC) begins its first week of 2022 hovering around the $47,000 mark.
The crypto index, which indicates market sentiment, has remained in “fear” territory since the start of 2022. Due to past volatility, Bitcoin closed December down 18.91% to $ 46,211, marking its third red December since 2017. Despite Bitcoin closing December in red, the main asset closed 2021 with gains of 76%. The cryptocurrency market features mixed trading on Monday, with a few altcoins showing gains in the past 24 hours.
Bullish predictions, mixed fundamentals
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $46,885 under the key moving average of 200, which might suggest further downside pressure.
Although 2022 started on a relatively mixed note in terms of price developments, the bullish outlook is still in place. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele shared six Bitcoin bullish predictions for 2022 on January 2.
President Bukele predicts that two more countries will join El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Also, he predicts that the BTC price will reach the much-coveted $100,000 mark in 2022.
As reported by U.Today, Bitcoin’s hashrate hit a new high of 203.5 Exahashes per second, according to data provided by BitInfoCharts. This means the network is the strongest it has ever been.
Hashrate refers to the total computing power needed for mining new coins and securing the network.
Chain analytics firm Glassnode noted that the mining hashrate ended 2021 up 27% on the year, after fully recovering from the fallout from China’s crypto ban, when around 53 % of miners were closed almost overnight.
Despite this positivity, volume across major centralized exchanges remains low. It might suggest weak market activity.
According to a seasoned analyst Pierre Brandt, Bitcoin has yet to show any signs of key dips. In this scenario, analysts identify $ 40,000 to $ 42,000 as the crucial area to remember for Bitcoin, with an action above corresponding to “build-up.”
