The cryptocurrency market plunged further on Wednesday to see another wave of red after signs of recovery on Tuesday. Bitcoin (BTC) plunged below $46K momentarily seeing a minor recovery above $46.5K while Ether (ETH) slipped below $3,600 before climbing above the support zone. The majority of altcoins in the top-20 market cap ranking lost 2%-10% of their valuation as market analysts hope for a recovery soon.
BTC was trading at $46,828 at the time of writing with a 2.14% decline in its market cap over the past 24-hours. The top cryptocurrency registered a new ATH of $68,789 in October despite a bear-dominated second quarter, however, it has again fallen to the same levels as seen towards the start of the May-June bearish cycle.
The retail interest in the top-cryptocurrency seems to be dying down and market pundits predict it will be all about institutions and whales moving forward. Bitcoin analyst Will Clemente tweeted various on-chain data charts to show that the retail interest in Bitcoin started to phase out after the spring. Institutions mostly watched from the sidelines during the 2017 bull run, but they have taken the center stage now with several public companies heavily invested in BTC.
Retail interest in Bitcoin is pretty much gone since the Spring.
Big boys running the show now. pic.twitter.com/ufs6xxeB1Q
— Will Clemente (@WClementeIII) December 28, 2021
The BTC price decline in the last two months of 2021 has also failed several price predictions for the top cryptocurrency. While absurd price predictions are nothing new, the failure of Plan B’s Stock-to-flow (S2F) price target grabbed the most attention. The S2F model has predicted a $95K Christmas price target which it missed by a large margin, but the Bitcoin analyst believes the failure doesn’t necessarily indicate the end of the bull run.
I use models to protect myself from emotions. Right now most people, incl myself, fear further decline of btc price and want to sell. But S2F model shows btc is at the low end of 50k-200k 1sd band, a buy signal. Likewise 200k will feel like btc will rise forever but S2F says sell pic.twitter.com/fucjbmkZFk
— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) December 29, 2021
Ethereum is nearing its ETH 2.0 upgrade
Ether the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading at $3,691 with a 3% decline over the past 24-hours. ETH over the course of 2021 has become one of the biggest gainers with an ATH of $4,891. The altcoin has also shown greater market depth and better price recovery during times of market liquidations.
The altcoin is nearing one of the biggest upgrades as its mainent is expected to move to the Proof-of-Stake chain by the second quarter of 2022. The number of staked ETH on the Beacon chain has already surpassed 8 million ETH which all will be unlocked once the transition is complete. The ETH 2.0 testnet is currently live and developers have called upon the community to test it before its official public release.
27/ Switching gears a bit, in 2021 ETH staked on the newly launched Beacon Chain grew 8-fold to over 8M ETH, in expectation of the transition to PoS. pic.twitter.com/TIJLWwoxBC
— Ξlias Simos (@eliasimos) December 27, 2021
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