7 August 2024
Bitcoin and the broader crypto market faced a notable price plunge on Monday, with the global crypto market cap losing $100 billion in valuation and total liquidations surpassing $1 billion.
Interestingly, despite this so-called ‘Red Monday,’ Eric Balchunas, a Bloomberg Senior exchange-traded fund (ETF) analyst, revealed in a post uploaded earlier today that investors of BlackRock’s crypto fund, IBIT, maintained their holdings without flinching.
Unshaken By Market Meltdown
According to Balchunas, during this chaotic period whereby panic selling may be seen as the norm, BlackRock investors particularly showcased a strong level of resilience by not liquidating any portion of their cryptocurrency holdings.
What makes this more interesting is that these same investors had already endured about an 8% loss the previous week and were facing additional losses during the Bitcoin market crash. Balchunas noted:
Compared to some of these degens these boomers [Blackrock investors] are like the Rock of Gibraltar. You guys are so lucky to have them.
Balchunas further reported that although BlackRock registered a minor 0.3% total outflow from its assets under management (AUM) during this period, it is relatively small compared to the overall market movements.
Interestingly, a third of these outflows were attributed to Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which faced challenges during the same period.
Furthermore, Balchunas speculated that although the immediate reaction to the market downturn was more subdued than expected, the week might still see more significant capital withdrawals, potentially reaching the billions. Balchunas noted:
I could see some more outflows this week. I was thinking a couple billion would leave, maybe 5%, which means 95% hung tough which would be strong. So far tho looking much stronger than that. Even I’ve been surprised by the HODL ability of the boomers and equally surprised by the weakness of the natives. My lord you finally have ETFs here bringing in $17b and you can’t just chill?
Bitcoin Current Recovery And Outlook
Following the recent dip in Bitcoin comes a notable recovery, which started earlier today. So far, Bitcoin has increased to as high as $56,957 in the early hours of today before retracing slightly to trade at $56,672, at the time of writing, up by 3.6% in the past 24 hours.
According to prominent crypto analyst Ali, Bitcoin has formed a “rising wedge, a pattern often linked to downtrends.” Ali projected that Bitcoin might surge to “$56,000-$57,000 at the wedge’s upper boundary.”
However, a possible plunge to $51,000 should still be watched out for.
In the short term, #Bitcoin forms a rising wedge, a pattern often linked to downtrends. Though $BTC might climb to $56,000-$57,000 at the wedge’s upper boundary, watch for a potential breakdown that could pull #BTC back to around $51,000! pic.twitter.com/qwBvwwHNnO
— Ali (@ali_charts) August 6, 2024
Featured image created with DALL-E, Chart from TradingView