Bitcoin (BTC) fell to weekly lows at the open on Wall Street on Aug. 17, as upcoming comments from the Federal Reserve unsettle risk assets.
The dollar rises in anticipation of the news from the US Fed
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView saw a daily decline of more than 2% in the BTC/USD pair, which hit $23,325 on Bitstamp.
The pair, already showing signs of weakness, tumbled further as US stocks began trading, hours before the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) was to release the minutes of its latest meeting.
While not an interest rate decision, the meeting was set to give insight into the Fed’s thinking on the next rate change.scheduled for September.
“The important event tonight with the FOMC minutes, through which you can receive information on whether the Fed is going to be aggressive or dovish,” summarized Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe in his latest Twitter update.
“I don’t think it will have a massive impact, however cryptocurrencies tend to give it a lot of value and therefore a lot of volatility.”
Stocks had hit significant resistance in line with cryptocurrencies over the week, leading some concerned sources to continue to forecast a further major pullback across the board.
Justin Bennett, founder of cryptocurrency education platform Crypto Academy, warned that the S&P 500 was copying behavior immediately prior to the 2008 global financial crisis.
“This is mind-boggling. The S&P 500 is mimicking the 2008 crash. Even the timing from the ATH is almost identical,” commented on a comparison chart.
“The bottom is NOT in stocks or cryptocurrencies.”
A telltale sign of the day was the advance in the US dollar as the US Dollar Index (DXY) looked to attack resistance in place throughout the month of August.
“$DXY could go to 112-113 after the threat of going below 105.50. That will weigh on stocks and cryptocurrencies”, added Bennett.
Buyers look at the lowest offers
In shorter time frames, Bitcoin’s trend was also rapidly losing steam as bid support dwindled on the Binance order book.
The on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators caught the stock, concluding that “even if we do get another boost, we still believe the bear market rally is running out of steam.”
A bullish target could come in the form of the 100 day moving average, a separate post explainedwhich is at USD 24,544, at press time.
“The commentator Matthew Hyland concludes: “I have been warning about this Bitcoin breakout for the past few days.
“The structure has generally changed weakly recently. The market seemed to give its first signs of life last week. That seems to be short-lived.”
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