Investors' risk-off stance and selling pressure in global crypto markets showed no sign of abating on Saturday (22/1/2022) after Bitcoin slid as much as 4 percent and Ether fell about 7 percent in the US market. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, was trading at around $35,300 at 4:15 p.m. US time, having previously touched $34,042.77. The drop represents a loss of more than 50 percent from last November's all-time high. This downward sentiment was accompanied by hawkish signals from the Fed as well as hints of new regulations by the White House and threats of an immediate ban on Russia. As a result, current conditions are also putting pressure on not only Bitcoin, but also other crypto assets, including Ether.
“It's even more of a risk asset now that most of the crypto market cap is Ethereum, Solana, and all sorts of other things that are basically just technologies where we've put forward the huge assumptions of global growth to date.” Meanwhile, Amy Wu Silverman of RBC Capital Markets revealed the main technical to watch is the ratio of Ether to Bitcoin. After trading above 0.07 for several months, Ether has dropped to its lowest level relative to Bitcoin since October. “Now, this is officially a risk-off correction across the board,” Wu Silverman wrote in a note on Saturday. "There's nowhere to hide." The next level to watch is 0.055, according to Wu Silverman. “Watch the ETH/BTC ratio of 0.055-0.088,” he wrote. When it reaches the 0.055 level, the trader should choose to stay.
Ether's decline relative to the world's largest cryptocurrency also caught the attention of Noelle Acheson, Head of Market Insights at Genesis Global Trading Inc. To him, this is a reminder that Ether is even more vulnerable to macro-driven risk appetite swings than Bitcoin. “This reminds us that BTC is a risky asset exposed to risk-off sentiment, but ETH is more than that [has lost more than 40 percent of its value over the last 30 days!],” Acheson wrote in an email. “It's weird to see BTC being such a strong player these days.”