Bitcoin (BTC) circled $16,750 after the Dec. 28 Wall Street open after stocks dragged markets lower.
Bitcoin analysts stick to downside fears
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked BTC/USD as it recovered from local lows of $16,559 on Bitstamp.
After days of barely any movement up or down, Bitcoin finally saw a flicker of action as traditional markets opened after the Christmas break. Unfortunately for bulls, volatility was to the downside, with BTC/USD seeing its lowest levels since Dec. 20.
On equities markets, United States indexes improved after a weak first day, which nonetheless failed to leave much of an impression on BTC commentators, many of whom stuck to grim short-term price forecasts.
“I can’t stress this enough,” Toni Ghinea wrote in part of a Twitter update.
“The sell-off will accelerate in the coming weeks. This bear market is far from over.”
Accompanying charts showed targets for Bitcoin and several altcoins, with Ether (ETH) due a trip as low as $600.
Fellow analytics account Illiquid Markets likewise told followers to “be prepared for even lower prices in 2023,” with these to be “lower than most expect.”
Amid an absence of buyer interest, only MicroStrategy and its CEO, Michael Saylor, were on record for increasing BTC exposure.
The firm, already the public company with the largest Bitcoin treasury, added another 2,500 BTC to its reserves, it confirmed in a filing.
Down, but better than Tesla
At $16,700, meanwhile, BTC/USD traded at around 60% down year-to-date, with three days until the yearly close.
Related: Bitcoin underperforms stocks, gold for the first time since 2018
This was noticeably comparable to Tesla stock, which at $113 was on track to seal year-to-date losses of 72% or more.
For Mike McGlone, senior macro strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, there was enough evidence in the assets’ performance to entertain the possibility of Bitcoin coming out on top.
“The near certainty of declining Bitcoin supply vs. the rising amount of Tesla shares outstanding favors outperformance by the crypto, if the rules of economics apply,” research he posted on Twitter on Dec. 19 read.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s offloading of TSLA in 2022 remained on others’ radar. Discussing trading activity at the firm on Dec. 25, analyst Christopher Bloomstran described both Tesla’s BTC stake and shareholders as “suffering mightily” this year.
“Since the March 15, 2021 rebranding, Tesla and Bitcoin are down 48% and 70%, respectively. Great fun,” he summarized.
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