Bitcoin started Monday morning by trading lower. At the time of writing, BTC was balancing at $22,447.
According to CoinMarketCap, a website that tracks virtual asset quotes, Bitcoin reached a low of $22,332 and a high of $22,497 over the past 24 hours.
Over the past week, BTC collapsed by 5.2% and closed the seven-day period at $22,400. Bitcoin finished February by gaining 0.9% to $23,200. Despite the US stock market's fall in February (the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 4.2%, which was the sharpest monthly decline since December 2022, the S&P 500 index fell by 2.6%, NASDAQ Composite lost 1.1%), Bitcoin managed to stay in the green.
The reason why U.S. stocks and Bitcoin had mixed movements was because the correlation between the two is decreasing in 2023 as Bitcoin moves flat. This was reported in late February by analysts from the American investment company Bernstein. Last month, the correlation of Bitcoin with the NASDAQ Composite collapsed from 0.94 to 0.58.
According to experts from Bernstein, the cryptocurrency market has recently been balancing between bullish and bearish trends in anticipation of further catalysts, while its sensitivity to important news and events in the financial world has decreased markedly.
At the beginning of 2022, analysts, on the contrary, often emphasized the high level of correlation of the U.S. stock market and the cryptocurrency market amid intense expectations of both the consequences of geopolitical conflict in Eastern Europe and further steps of the US Federal Reserve. Thus, in the middle of last year, the experts of the investment company Arcane Research stated that the correlation of BTC and tech stocks reached the highest since July 2020.
At the same time, economists of the analytical platform TradingView stated that the correlation of the cryptocurrency market with the U.S. stock market in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 70%.
Altcoin market
Ethereum, Bitcoin's main competitor, also started Monday with a decline. At the time of writing, the coin is trading at $1,561. Over the past week, ETN lost 4.4% and collapsed to $1,570.
As for the cryptocurrencies from the top 10 by capitalization, all of the coins, except for some stablecoins, were trading in the red zone over the past 24 hours. XRP (-2.64%) had the worst results in the last 24 hours.
In the past week, all cryptocurrencies from the top ten, with the exception of several stablecoins, also showed a steady decline. Polygon (-12.26%) led losses.
According to CoinGecko, the world's largest aggregator of data on virtual assets, in the last 24 hours, among the top 100 most capitalized digital assets, Maker token (+6.44%) was the best performer, while SingularityNET (-7.83%) led losses.
At the end of the past week, among the first 100 strongest digital assets, the best results were also shown by the digital asset Maker (+21.61%), while the worst was Klaytn (-24.74%).
According to CoinGecko, as of Monday evening, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is above the important key $1 trillion level and stands at $1.029 trillion. Over the past week, this figure has declined by 5%.
Since reaching its peak above $3 trillion in 2021, cryptocurrency market capitalization has lost over $1.5 trillion.
Forecasts of crypto-experts
Traditionally, March is not a good month for Bitcoin. Since 2010, Bitcoin has fallen in price in eight cases and increased in only four. At the same time, the average decline of the coin over the past 12 years was 12%, and the average growth - 15%.
In the first case, Bitcoin could close March at $19,700, and in the second, at around $26,900. By the way, 2021 and 2022 were successful years for Bitcoin in March: the average increase in these two years was 20%.
Despite the successful February, many crypto analysts suggest that the current month may be negative for the coin. In this case, the key factors to reduce the price of Bitcoin would be information on inflation, the labor market and GDP in the United States, which can have a significant impact on the policy of the Fed, and thus, on the attitude of investors to BTC.
In March, the Fed will hold its next meeting. Prior to it, the release of inflation data. The previous figure indicated little movement in inflation. If the current level of consumer prices will decrease at a low rate, then the likelihood of a rate hike above 5.5% is extremely high.
Other crypto-experts are sure that today the market of virtual assets is not as overheated as the stock market, so BTC will not sharply plunge in the near future. Thus, according to experts, Bitcoin's deepest low will not exceed $21,500 if the market enters a state of correction for a few days. And in case of an uptrend, Bitcoin can rise to $23,800-24,400, and later, to consolidate near $25,000.
Many experts think that the recent breakthrough to the psychologically important level of $25,000 in February will contribute to its further steady rise and make the next important target the level of $29,500.
Recall that at the end of 2022, Bitcoin plummeted by 64%. In the first month of the new year, it gained almost 40%, making January the best month for it since October 2021.
CEO of digital asset management company Galaxy Digital Holdings Michael Novogratz voiced optimism about March. He suggested that Bitcoin could reach $30,000 by the end of the month.
