In particular, the market had lost around $230 billion in the first week of 2022, falling from $2.25 trillion on December 31, 2021, to $1.9 trillion on January 7, 2022. The total global crypto market cap presently stands at $1.9 trillion, a 2.87% decrease in the last 24 hours. Notably, the whole crypto market volume over the previous 24 hours has decreased by 4.54 % to $87.7 billion; however, the volume in DeFi has increased by 17.13 % to $15.02 billion. The volume of stablecoins is presently $69.23 billion, accounting for 78.79% of the 24-hour volume of the cryptocurrency market.

Bitcoin and Ethereum hit hard

Large-cap tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum have been at the forefront of the capital outflow. Market observers have attributed the drop to the Federal Reserve’s tapering efforts, which were implemented in the face of rising inflation. The fall started in December as the Federal Reserve signaled that it would take more urgent action to combat growing inflation, leading to a downturn in market confidence.  Some of the most prominent cryptocurrencies had significant support levels being broken, followed by liquidation. Take, for example, the rapid decline in the price of Bitcoin on January 5, when it went from $46,000 to roughly $42,000 in less than three hours. The latest information from the on-chain market analysis platform Glassnode reveals that the dominance of Bitcoin long liquidation has reached 69%, the greatest level since May 2021. Notably, the vast bulk of liquidations in the futures markets during the last several weeks were caused by long traders. Glassnode stated: 

Bitcoin is holding above $40,000

Currently, the price of Bitcoin is trading at $40,798, down 1.96% and 13.09% in the last week, with a total market cap of $769 billion, according to CoinMarketCap statistics. In less than an hour on Monday, Bitcoin dropped as low as $39,800, but it only stayed there for less than five minutes before bouncing back over the critical $40,000 barrier. Bitcoin had been trading in a range between $41,400 and $42,600 prior to the sudden drop. Interestingly, prominent crypto trading analyst Michael van de Poppe has noted that Bitcoin needs to break through $42,800 – $42,900 and a test of $45,600 is possible with bullish divergence. According to van de Poppe, the support lower range of the support zone is between $38,000 to $40,000. He stated: The analyst added: Elsewhere, other leading cryptocurrencies such as Chainlink (LINK) and Intercomputer (ICP) have managed to perform well in the last week despite the market downturn. LINK is up 4.13% on the day and 23.97% over the last week, trading at $27.43; similarly, ICP Is up 3.76% in the last 24 hours and 33.97% across the previous seven days, changing hands at $36.33. Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.