Bitcoin, Ethereum Slip to Three-Week Lows

By Andrew Asmakov

The crypto industry’s hopes for a new Bitcoin (BTC) rally during last week’s Bitcoin 2022 event in Miami haven't lived up to expectations; the leading cryptocurrency slipped below $42,000 on Monday morning to levels last seen on March 22.

Bitcoin is trading at $41,532 at time of going to press, with data from CoinMarketCap showing that the benchmark cryptocurrency is down 2.36% over the past 24 hours and 9.65% in the last week.

The Bitcoin 2022 conference, which gathered thousands of crypto enthusiasts and executives from dozens of Bitcoin-focused companies, saw several important announcements, including Cash App's direct deposit feature, enabling 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 event, which saw El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele announcing his country would adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, none of the news coming out of the conference has served to boost the price of Bitcoin.

Moreover, as the 7-day chart shows, Bitcoin peaked above $47,000 on April 5, only to hit the skids in the following days. A brief spike above $43,300 failed to result in an extended breakout either.

Ethereum slumps alongside Bitcoin

The rest of the crypto market has followed suit, with the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum (ETH) down 5% on the day, currently changing hands at $3,076.

Ethereum's price has slipped by over 11% over the last seven days, with former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes predicting that by the end of June ETH may well test the $2,500 level.

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%.

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