Bitcoin began Wednesday morning with a decline, by the time of writing, its value is balanced at $23,050. The value of the cryptocurrency fell by 4.6% on Tuesday and closed the day at $23,200, while bitcoin trading volume soared by more than 4% – up to $25.52 billion.

According to virtual asset price tracking website CoinMarketCap, over the past 24 hours, the lowest value of bitcoin reached $22,771, and the highest was $23,898.

At the same time, on Monday, August 8, the bitcoin rate soared to a weekly high of $24,200, but could not stay at this mark for a long time due to the permanent decline in US stock indices.

Since the beginning of 2022, analysts have increasingly begun to emphasize the high level of correlation between the US securities market and virtual assets amid intense anticipation by both of further steps by the US Federal Reserve.

In January, experts from the investment company Arcane Research already stated that the correlation of BTC and technology securities had reached its peak since July 2020.

Despite the fact that today the correlation of bitcoin with the US stock indicators S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite has moved away from the highs, this indicator is still in the zone of highest values in history.

Altcoin Market

Ethereum, the main competitor of bitcoin, also started the trading session on Wednesday with a fall and by the time of writing the material is balanced at $1,668. On Tuesday, the altcoin quotes sank 4.5% and closed the day at $1,670.

At the same time, last July turned out to be the month of permanent growth for the second cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization, when its price rose by more than 56% - to the highest levels since mid-June (above $1,700).

The main catalyst for the July rise in the price of ETH was the message of one of the developers of the project that the Ethereum blockchain could move to a new Proof-of-Stake algorithm that does not require the participation of miners as early as mid-September.

The day before, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the network transition to PoS, planned for the first month of autumn, could increase the popularity of digital assets for everyday payments by reducing the commission to 2 cents. According to the Canadian-Russian programmer, the popularity of crypto payments has fallen after 2018 amid high transaction fees.

As for cryptocurrencies from the top 10 by capitalization, over the past day, all coins, except for the stablecoin Tether, were traded in the red zone. At the same time, the digital asset Polkadot (-5.84%) showed the lowest results here.

Within the framework of the past week, the best results were recorded for Binance Coin (+13.58%), and the highest losses were for XRP (-0.73%).

According to the world's largest virtual asset data aggregator CoinGecko, over the past 24 hours, among the top 100 most capitalized digital assets, the LEO Token coin (+3.9%) topped the list of leaders, and Shiba Inu (-12. four%).

According to the results of the past week, among the hundred strongest cryptocurrencies, the Flow coin showed the best results (+53.4%), and the worst - Tenset (-15.8%).

According to the portal CoinGecko, on Tuesday, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market decreased by 4.2% to $1.1 trillion.

Opinions of Crypto Experts

High volatility and unpredictable behavior of the cryptocurrency market force experts to make the most unexpected statements and forecasts regarding its future. The CEO of the financial company Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz shared his opinion that bitcoin will not be able to overcome the $30,000 mark by the end of this year. During the remaining time until the end of 2022, the expert believes, the coin will balance in the range from $20,000 to $30,000 and is unlikely to exceed its upper limit.

At the same time, Novogratz called the recent partnership between the American investment company BlackRock and the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange an important upward factor for bitcoin. Through this agreement, BlackRock customers will now be able to trade digital assets. In this regard, many experts expect a significant rise in the cost of bitcoin.

Another well-known analyst, Chen Limin, CFO and head of trading operations at ICB Fund, is confident that in August the position of the digital asset market will largely depend on the reaction of investors to the publication of data on consumer price statistics in the United States, which will be released on August 10. Thus, the report on producer prices will indicate the potential size of the increase in interest rates by the US Fed in the September meeting.

If the central bank does not receive any signs of weakening record inflation, it will raise the rate by 0.75%, Limin said. As a result, tightening monetary policy will increase the risk of a recession in the global economy and encourage investors to move away from risky assets.

However, there are more optimistic forecasts among cryptanalysts. Earlier, one of the analysts of the American financial information provider Bloomberg, Mike McGlone, suggested that in the long term, bitcoin will reach $100,000.

In mid-2021, the expert already predicted that the main cryptocurrency would reach this price level by the end of the year. Today, McGlone no longer names specific dates, but claims that the rise of BTC to $100,000 is only a "matter of time."

In favor of this version, the economist believes, there are many positive factors within the market, foreshadowing an imminent increase in demand for bitcoin.