Bitcoin is through the Asian lows and $20,000 to the worst levels since Monday.
The crypto held up well in the early going even as US equities sunk but it's now leading broader markets lower as the mood sours. At times, bitcoin has been a leading indicator of intraday sentiment.
Technically, this looks like a head-and-shoulders pattern with a target near $18,500.
The market is carefully watching for ongoing signs of strain in the alt space, among brokers and in the dangerous crypto lending space. Solana is under some pressure today after a five-day rebound and the Solend fiasco.
Ethereum is down $62 today to $1059. It fell as low as $879 on the weekend but has bounced back. Still, before that it had fallen in a straight line from $1800 so the bounce isn't impressive and points to lurking sellers.
The space is having a crisis of confidence and there are even signs of a civil war. Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor yesterday tore into alt currencies and crypto lending.
"“What you have is a $400 billion cloud of opaque, unregistered securities trading without full and fair disclosure, and they are all cross-collateralized with Bitcoin,” he told Fortune.
He argued that bitcoin is being dragged down by the mess of 19,000 cryptos and some bad actors within the space, including conflicts in leverage trading.
“The crypto exchanges, offshore and onshore, are unregistered, unregulated and offer 20x leverage, they don’t have mature Chinese walls," Saylor said.
