Bitcoin falls to lowest in a month as risk aversion takes toll

BITCOIN dropped to its lowest level in more than a month as cryptocurrency continued to be hurt by investors' risk aversion amid signs of muted new interest in the coins.

The largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 4.2 per cent to US$38,580 on Monday (Apr 18). Second-largest Ether dropped 4.7 per cent, declining to as low as US$2,902. The global crypto market's value dropped about 4 per cent in the past 24 hours to US$1.9 trillion, according to pricing from CoinGecko.

Technical charts suggest that despite Bitcoin's recent drop it's "not close to an oversold reading", and near-term support at US$35,000 likely won't hold, said John Roque, technical analyst at 22V Research, in a note on Sunday. "We continue to believe that it will get to the US$30,000 level," he said.

Bitcoin has been struggling along with risk assets in recent months. It's largely traded in a range of US$35,000 to US$45,000 this year as the Federal Reserve started hiking interest rates amid stubbornly high inflation. Analysis from data provider Glassnode suggests that interest in Bitcoin has remained muted, with little growth in the coin's user base and minimal flows of new demand.

Many Bitcoin bulls remain unbowed, with predictions of US$100,000 and even higher still being mentioned. But price targets like US$500,000 and US$1 million circulating mean "it's hard for us to figure sentiment remains anything but constructive and with a chart that looks like this that's bad news", Roque said. BLOOMBERG