Losses in bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto majors extended to their third straight day, as risk-off behavior after this week’s FOMC meeting and general profit-taking contributed to heavy market sentiment.
BTC dropped 4.2% in the past 24 hours, with Solana’s SOL, ether (ETH) and Cardano’s ADA falling as much as 9%. Dogecoin slid the most with an 11% drop, extending weekly losses to over 21%.
The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), an index of the largest tokens by market cap, fell 5.5%. That spread over to futures markets, with over $890 million in long and short liquidations in the past 24 hours.
Reaction to a hawkish FOMC triggered a sharp selloff across all risk assets on Wednesday and Thursday. Nasdaq plummeted 3.5%, S&P 500 dropped 2.9% and BTC declined more than 6% since the meeting, where Fed chair Jerome Powell hinted at only a few rate cuts in 2025.
Powell then said at a post-FOMC press conference that the central bank wasn’t allowed to own bitcoin under current regulations — in response to a question about President-elect Donald Trump’s strategic reserve promises.
Traders at Singapore-based QCP Capital attributed the market crash to overly bullish sentiment in the past month.
“While it is easy to blame the selloff on the Fed’s hawkish cut, we believe the root cause of the morning’s crash to be market’s overly bullish positioning,” QCP said in a Telegram broadcast.
“Since the election, risk assets have enjoyed an impressive one-sided run, leaving the market extremely vulnerable to any shocks. While the Fed’s 25bps cut was expected, the source of panic can be attributed to the dot plot, which was revised lower. Due to persistent inflation, the Fed now projects two rate cuts for 2025 compared to the market’s consensus of 3 rate cuts,” QCP added.
A drop in bitcoin comes amid an otherwise bullish period for the asset.
December tends to be historically bullish for bitcoin in a move colloquially termed the “Santa Claus Rally.” Data from the past eight years shows that bitcoin ended December in the green six times since 2015, running at least 8% to as much as 46% (in the outlier year of 2020).
Seasonality is the tendency of assets to experience regular and predictable changes that recur every calendar year. While it may look random, possible reasons range from profit-taking around tax season in April and May, which causes drawdowns, to the generally bullish November and December, a sign of increased demand ahead of holiday season.