Jittery Macro Affecting Crypto But US Institutional Investors Continue to Buy Bitcoin

Bitcoin continues to be under selling pressure as the digital currency drops to nearly $46,000.

This latest weakness in the price of Bitcoin has been despite the Coinbase whales scooping coins off the market. In the last 24 hours, more than 30k BTC worth approximately $1.5 billion has moved out of Coinbase reserves.

A similar Bitcoin purchase preceded the $24k breakout when the digital assets moved from weak hands to strong hands.

“Another significant Coinbase outflows at 48k. US institutional investors are still buying BTC,” said Ki-Young Ju, CEO of crypto data provider CryptoQuant. “I think it will eventually go above 48k, which is the institutional buying level,” he added.

As we reported, the ongoing stock sell-off has been dragging the crypto market down. It is basically the result of what’s going on in the macro environment with bond yields rising, pushing the US dollar up, which is not good for risky assets and gold. Young Ju said,

“I think the major reason for this drop is the jittering macro environment like the 10-year Treasury note, not whale deposits, miner selling, and lack of institutional demand.”

With the continuation of the big bond sell-off, investors have shifted their risk preference from high to medium. The Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell meanwhile continued with the same rhetoric, committing to its ultra-loose monetary policy, exactly what the market wanted to hear.

But yields, which actually move inversely to the price of the bond, had a sharp increase still, which means investors are selling off their “worthless over-abundant government debt,” noted analyst Mati Greenspan in his daily newsletter Quantum Economics.

Besides the cryptos, which are trying to rally but struggling to reclaim the highs, the top tech stocks have been taking a beating. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had its worst day in four months, sliding 7.6% from its early February peak before ending Friday with a slight uptick. About the ongoing equity-crypto correlations, trader and analyst Alex Kruger says,

“For correlations to be meaningful, their *flows* must be significant relative to other flows. Hence why you will often see correlations spike during times of market turmoil, and diminish during times of heavy inflows into bitcoin when driven by bitcoin specific factors.”

According to him, the crypto market can rebound over the weekend if risk assets stay strong.

#Bitcoin made a slight new low into support on a positive divergence. Potential for bullish falling wedge it if can break above upper trend line.
Support key to hold otherwise risk of topping structure that could trigger a corrective target into $31,500 range.$BTC pic.twitter.com/g7zEuN3MMs

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) February 26, 2021

However, with March seasonality coming into play, the month that has been the majority of the times seen red price action, the market may see some sideways action next month if not bearish onslaught.