Bitcoin, Ethereum Muted, Dogecoin Spikes: No Signs Of ‘Santa Claus’ Rally As Analyst Says Tech Rout Behind Risk-Off Mood

Bitcoin and Ethereum were trading nearly flaton Thursday evening, ahead of the holiday weekend, as the global cryptocurrency market cap rose 0.2% to $811.2 billion at 7:16 p.m. EST. Price Performance Of Major Coins Coin 24-hour 7-day Price Bitcoin BTC/USD -0.6% -3.15% $16,817.27 Ethereum ETH/USD 0.3% -3.9% $1,217.56 Dogecoin DOGE/USD 4% -9.45% $0.08 Top 24-Hour Gainers (Data via CoinMarketCap) Cryptocurrency 24-Hour % Change (+/-) Price Neutrino USD (USDN) +7.4% $0.56 Terra Classic (LUNC) +5.7% $0.00014 Dogecoin (DOGE) +4% ??$0.08

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Why It Matters: While the two largest cryptocurrencies were largely lackluster in terms of price action, the bellwether meme coin, Dogecoin, was included in the list of top intraday gainers.

Hopes for a "Santa Claus" rally faded on Thursday as a sell-off in risky assets returned. Tech stocks took a beating after a major chipmakers numbers brought demand concerns to the fore.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed 1.45% and 2.2% lower, respectively. U.S. stock futures were seen largely flat at the time of writing.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are lower today as risk aversion runs wild across Wall Street. Tech stocks are getting hit the hardest, thank you Micron, and that seems like it keeps pressure on all the interest-rate sensitive sectors, said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst with OANDA.

Michal van de Poppe described the price action of Bitcoin as Beautiful on Thursday. The cryptocurrency trader said that the apex coin hit support, had a strong bounce since, andnow was into a zone of resistance.

He said that with this response of Bitcoin $17,400 seems to be a likely level and it was long beyond the $16,800 – $16,900 level.

Beautiful price action of #Bitcoin.

Hit support, strong bounce since, now into resistance.

With this response, continuation to $17.4K seems likely. Flip $16.8-16.9K = also a long. pic.twitter.com/5jU2k9FIyG Michal van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) December 22, 2022

Trader Justin Bennett said that it was difficult to expect much downside from the dollar index the measure of the greenbacks strength against a basket of six currencies. He expects a DXY bounce from 102.103. At the time of writing the dollar index was at 104.39.

Difficult to expect much more downside from the $DXY without a bounce from 102-103. pic.twitter.com/iWeek80Xlv Justin Bennett (@JustinBennettFX) December 22, 2022

This year, cryptocurrencies have had astrong inverse correlation with the dollar index. Major coins have usually followed the opposite direction to the index.

Market intelligence platformSantimentnoted that the amount of coins in self-custody continues to create a new all-time high and is currently at 18.2 million BTC. Coins on exchanges are just 1.2 million BTC,a four-year low.

Santiment took a decade-long view in its tweeted data.

Illustrated is the 10-year long term view of #Bitcoin’s funds moving on and off exchanges. The amount of coins in self custody continues creating a new #AllTimeHigh, now at 18.2M $BTC. Meanwhile, coins on exchanges is at just 1.2M $BTC, a 4-year low. https://t.co/HiPDu55vuo pic.twitter.com/v2G1TmZdLL Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 22, 2022

The trend towards self-custody has accelerated recently after the bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried-ledFTX.

Bankman-Fried was taken to court in New York on Thursday. He faces allegations of fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations. His bail was set at $250 million.

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