An early Saturday morning slide saw Ethereum slip below its key support level of $1,000 and Bitcoin fall as low as $18,905, representing significant new lows in already bearish crypto market, according to CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum dropped precipitously from $1,076 to $986 in less than two hours.

ETH

+1.95%$1,831.99

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Bitcoin is down nearly 10% in 24 hours, and continues to hover below the $20,000 mark at the time of writing. The last time Bitcoin was in the $19,000 range was December 2020. Back then, hitting $19,450 was good news, framed as a "surge" tied to proposed U.S. regulation of stablecoins.

BTC

+2.00%$96,505.79

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The top two "blue chip" cryptocurrencies are now below their largely symbolic barriers—$20,000 for Bitcoin and $1,000 for Ethereum. Still, breaching these thresholds could trigger a wave of "forced liquidations" that could in turn drive prices down even further.

Even more notably, Bitcoin today fell below its December 2017 high of $19,834—the peak of the last bull run, which began when BTC broke through $1,000 on New Year's Day of that year. In prior bear markets, Bitcoin had never fallen below the peak of its prior bull run.

Ethereum first saw $1,000 in January 2018, then lost it in when Crypto Winter hit in February 2018. After it regained that mark in January of last year, it had never fallen below $1,000 until now.

Investors and analysts continue to scan for the bottom. Swan Bitcoin Analyst Sam Callahan has said that Bitcoin could drop as low as $13,800, representing a fall of more than 80% from its all-time high in November 2021. The same thing happened in December 2018, when Bitcoin nearly dipped to $3,000.

 2022 Crypto Crash

What Happens if Bitcoin Falls Below $20,000?

As bearish sentiment floods financial markets, experts are weighing in on whether Bitcoin will plunge below the $20,000 mark—and what might happen if it does. Bitcoin, now firmly in a bear market, is currently trading at just above $22,000, a remarkable fall from its all-time high price of nearly $69,000—and a drop that most observers attribute to worsening macro-economic conditions, such as rising inflation and interest rates. At the moment, all eyes are on the $20,000 price line—not only becau...

The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies currently stands at around $835 billion, down over 7% in the last 24 hours.

That's a far cry from 221 days ago, when headlines declared a crypto market cap of $3 trillion. The price of BTC was $66,362 then, with Ethereum hitting $4,782. As the bear market worsens, crypto investors will seek a bottom to get back in.