Bitcoin Belly Up?

How did the protests in Kazakhstan affect bitcoin?

As of 7 January, bitcoin arrived at a monthly minimum with a value of $42,197. The largest altcoins suffered still greater. For example, Ethereum and Solana fell by $3,100 and $136.0, respectively. Binance Coin, Cardano and XRP now stand at $442.0, $1.2 and $0.74.

Analysts mention two major events that affected financial markets and the crypto market relatedly. The first key episode is the power shutdown in Kazakhstan. The country is home to 18% of the world’s mining capacity. During the unrest, the hashrate collapsed by 12% on average. On many popular pools, the drawdown exceeded 40% and the 1THash pool recorded an 82% slump.

The second fact concerns significant news from the USA. According to the published reports from the FRS meeting in December, the US regulator is ready to raise the interest rate earlier than previously thought. The stock market, which correlates with cryptocurrencies, reacted with a dramatic decline.

Is It All About Kazakhstan?

Protests in Kazakhstan are more likely to become a catalyst for the massive fall, not its cause, experts insist. It would be short-sighted to believe that the situation in Kazakhstan, the 2nd most influential mining power in the world after China, will not anyhow impact the crypto market. Nevertheless, too much of a dramatization will not do.

The current climate stems from the overlap of several factors that resulted in a strengthened position of the “bears”. Its constituents are the situation in Kazakhstan, the fall of the S&P 500 by 2% and the Nasdaq by 3.3% in the midst of a possible FRS interest rate increase in March. This report became a symbol of the market growth slow down, and it is only natural that the shares of technology giants have dropped, with bitcoin following this downward pattern – yet way more because of its volatile nature.

In contrast to the cryptocurrencies downslide in the pink of large-scale protests in Kazakhstan, uranium prices rocketed by 8%, totalling $45.25 per pound Wednesday against $42.0 Tuesday, the UxC informs. Along with that, the shares of Kazakhstan’s national nuclear company Kazatomprom collapsed by 9%.

Where it all goes

At the moment, the crypto market is unstable. In a negative scenario, analysts predict a bitcoin drop to $17,000-22,000. The picture will become more clear in the next few days. If the “bulls” defend the growth trend of the coin, then in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2022, the main cryptocurrency may overtop $70,000 and approximate $100,000, the experts believe.

A positive forecast depicts a bitcoin comeback to $66,000 and Ethereum to $4,800 in the nearest future. This year, bitcoin will not hit the all-time high, but next year it can climb above $75,000. Specialists also anticipate the market cap to expand by $4 trillion under the influence of DeFi, GameFI, NFT and metaverses.

Judging from other predictions, if bitcoin keeps an uptrend – the value above $39,000 – next year it can well go beyond $100,000 and stretch up to $200,000. Otherwise, the price may downslide to $20,000-30,000.

Altcoin rates will take after bitcoin. However, projects like Ethereum and the like related to headline metaverses are less prone to such turbulence and vice versa. In this regard, it is worth considering programs backed by large companies that can hold back and amp up the price during the growing season. Some of these include Sandbox, Solana, Engine.