Bitcoin Falls to 11 Week Low as $150 Billion Exits Crypto Markets

In early Sunday trading, BTC prices had fallen to their lowest levels for over 11 weeks, hitting $46,700 before a minor recovery.

The last time Bitcoin dropped to these levels was at the end of February during the second major correction of this rally. A rebound off that bottom sent prices above $60K for the first time in the two weeks that followed.

Second ‘Lower Low’ For Bitcoin

This time around, things feel slightly different and the bearish sentiment is returning to crypto asset markets. Since its all-time high of $65K on April 14, Bitcoin has made a lower high and has now formed a second lower low which is indicative of a larger downtrend developing.

Analyst ‘CryptoFibonacci’ has been eyeing the weekly chart which also suggests the bulls could be running out of steam.

$BTC Weekly Chart.

Warning signs or just basing for a move higher. Tick, tick, tick. If this chart was flipped upside down, how many would be calling for a bottom?#BTCUSDT #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/C0OGSxXFr1

— CryptoFibonacci (@CryptoFib) May 15, 2021

The move appears to have been driven by Elon Musk again with a tweet about Bitcoin’s energy consumption on May 13. Bitcoin’s fear and greed index has dropped to 20 – ‘extreme fear’ – its lowest level since the March 2020 market crash.

At the time of press, BTC was trading at just under $48,000, down 4% over the past 24 hours.

Market Cap Shrinks by $150B

As usual, the move has initiated a selloff for the majority of other cryptocurrencies resulting in around $150 billion exiting the markets over the past day or so.

Total market cap has declined to $2.3 trillion after an all-time high of $2.5 trillion on May 12. Things are still high on the long term view but losses could accelerate rapidly if the bearish sentiment increases.

Not all crypto assets are correcting this weekend, and some have been building on recent gains to push even higher – although they are few in number.

Those weekend warriors include Cardano which has added 4.8% on the day to trade at $2.27 according to Coingecko. ADA hit an all-time high on Saturday, May 15 reaching $2.36, a gain of 54% over the past 30 days.

Ripple’s XRP is also seeing a resurgence with a 13% pump on the day to flip Cardano for the fourth spot. XRP is currently trading at $1.58 with a market cap of $73 billion. The only other two cryptocurrencies in the green at the time of writing are Stellar and Solana, gaining 3.7% and 12% respectively.