Thursday saw the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index plunge to 15 — indicating Extreme Fear among investors — a level not seen since the middle of July.
Bitcoin continued to bleed on Friday — falling to fresh lows of $41,237.05 in early trading as the crypto markets suffer a terrible first week in 2022.
The world's biggest cryptocurrency has plunged by about 12% over the past week — with the likes of Ether, Binance Coin and Solana performing far worse.
Thursday saw the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index plunge to 15 — indicating Extreme Fear among investors — a level not seen since the middle of July.
Prices are currently at their lowest level since September as the Federal Reserve prepares to hike interest rates in a bid to tackle rampant levels of inflation.
And over in Kazakhstan, the world's second-largest Bitcoin mining hub, dozens of protesters have been killed after fresh unrest broke out in the city of Almaty.
Bearish sentiment is also beginning to seep into Crypto Twitter. While some analysts believe that current prices represent a prime buying opportunity for BTC, others are fearful that a prolonged bear market has begun — with some even setting price targets of $10,000 for the not-too-distant future.
Listen to the CoinMarketRecap podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts
Worse to Come?
Michael Saylor, whose company MicroStrategy has been aggressively buying Bitcoin since August 2020, seemed untroubled by the latest bearish downturn, tweeting:
"Gains aren't real until converted into Bitcoin. Losses aren't final until you sell that Bitcoin."
Meanwhile, Galaxy Digital Holdings CEO Mike Novogratz has told CNBC that he believes Bitcoin could bottom out between $38,000 and $40,000 — but then again, he was confident that BTC would hold $42,000 just last month.
Novogratz argues that the latest slide for Bitcoin has been dominated by low trading volumes, and financial institutions are waiting on the sidelines for an opportune moment to gain exposure.
Among those trying to inject a little levity into proceedings is Messari's Ryan Selkis, who tweeted:
"My price targets for BTC and ETH are $100k and $10k by May. I arrived at these targets by looking at the charts yesterday, and writing down the numbers I wanted the markets to hit by springtime."
