We hope that crypto recovery will continue on Friday as the market-wide defeat erased virtually all profits from the beginning of this week.
Bitcoin (BTC), which fell just below $88,000 a day ago, recently fell to $83,800, down 3.8% in the last 24 hours. The significant market benchmark Coindesk 20 index fell 5.7%, while native Cryptos Avalanche (Avax), Polygon (Pol), Near (Near) and Uniswap (uni) all nursing nearly 10% losses over the same period. Today's sale wiped out $115 billion of the total market value of cryptocurrency, according to TradingView data.
Ethereum's Ether (ETH) fell by more than 6%, extending the downtrend against BTC, falling to the largest cryptocurrency, the weakest relative price since May 2020.
The ugi crypto price action coincided with US stocks selling in-day stocks, with a 2% and 2.8% drop in the S&P 500 and Tech Heavy Nasdaq Index, respectively. Crypto-centric stocks also suffered major losses: Strategy (MSTR), the largest company BTC owner, was closed 10% lower, while Crypto Exchange Coinbase (Coin) fell 7.7%.
The February PCE inflation report released this morning showed that the price index rose 2.5% year-on-year and the core inflation rate was 2.8%, slightly surpassing expectations. Consumer spending showed a modest increase of 0.4%, but inflation-adjusted figures show minimal growth, suggesting potential headwinds in economic growth. The Federal Reserve, in Atlanta's GDPNOW model, signed 2.8% in the first quarter to the US economy, with 0.5% predicting it will coordinate gold imports and exports, spurring the fear of male dogs.
As the Trump administration notes, the massive US tariff implementation, the so-called “liberation day” on April 2, has also complicated concerns from investors across the market.
CME gap fill or another leg low?
Bitcoin has been closely correlated with Nasdaq recently, so US stocks falling down another leg could weigh in the wider crypto market. However, in a more optimistic memo, today's decline could close the price gap between around $84,000 and $85,000 between BTC's opening Monday and the previous week's closing at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Futures Market. Historically, BTC has typically reviewed similar CME gaps, with a drop of up to $84,000 on the cards, said earlier this week, Coindesk senior analyst James Van Straten.
Read more: Bitcoin weekend surge forms another CME gap and dropbacks that could signal
“It's difficult at this stage to determine if you've already seen the bottom in 2025,” said Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, in a market note. Despite the ongoing revisions, he noted several positive trends, including US encryption-friendly policies, the expansion of more traditional financial companies entering the industry, and crypto products that could be a sign for digital assets later this year.
“The additional setbacks we may see should be very well supported in the $70-75,000 area,” he added.