Crypto investors remain jittery after Bitcoin dipped to a three-month low, keeping Bitcoin and most major altcoins in the doldrums and knocking Tether’s USDT stablecoin from its $1 peg. Bitcoin was recently trading at $25,239, roughly flat over the past 24 hours after spending most of Thursday in negative territory. Ether, the second largest crypto in market value, was similarly sluggish to recently change hands at about $1,655, also about flat from Wednesday. Tether’s USDT stablecoin deviated from its $1 dollar peg early Thursday (ET) amid a sell-off on the popular Uniswap and Curve pools. USDT dropped as low as $0.9968.
This has been a very nervous time, with a lot of regulatory concerns now being compounded into concerns about Tether, said Riyad Carey, a research analyst at digital assets data provider Kaiko. Its depeg this morning has severely rattled markets, given that its dominance has increased significantly in the past few months.
MATIC, the token of the smart contracts platform Polygon, recently plunged more than 5%. Cryptos’ fade over the past two days continued its decoupling path from U.S. equities, which rose on Thursday as investors drew confidence from encouraging economic indicators. Vineeth Bhuvanagiri, managing director of EMURGO Fintech, compared the current market climate to 2019, saying Back then, we had big ups and downs within a certain range. Those who had remained on Crypto Twitter were going from slight euphoria to hints of depression, over and again.
Bhuvanagiri sounded a cautious note about rate hike uncertainties, declining economic growth and potential challenges for the banking sector – a toxic combination that could continue to unsettle crypto markets. “It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which the markets essentially have to get juiced again,” he wrote. “For most market participants, then, the strategy is likely one of survival until the macro turns and during what will inevitably be a volatile half year or so.”