Bitcoin Hovers at $47K with Fear as Crypto Market Progresses in 2022

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index’s measuring “fear” seems to suggest that Bitcoin traders may have kicked off 2022 with cold feet. Bitcoin (BTC) begins its first week of 2022 hovering around the $47,000 mark.

The crypto index, which indicates the market’s sentiment, has remained in the ”fear” territory since 2022 began. Owing to earlier volatility, Bitcoin closed December down 18.91% at $46,211, thus marking its third red December since 2017. Despite Bitcoin closing December in the red, the lead asset rounded off 2021 with 76% gains. The cryptocurrency market presents mixed trading on Monday, with few altcoins posting gains in the last 24 hours.

Bullish predictions, mixed fundamentals

At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $46,885 under the key moving average of 200, which might suggest further downside pressure.

Although 2022 kicked off on a relatively mixed note in terms of price action, bullish predictions are still in place. On Jan. 2, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele shared six bullish predictions on Bitcoin for 2022.

President Bukele predicts that two more countries will join El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Also, he predicts that the BTC price will reach the much-coveted $100,000 mark in 2022.

2022 predictions on #Bitcoin:

•Will reach $100k
•2 more countries will adopt it as legal tender
•Will become a major electoral issue in US elections this year
•Bitcoin City will commence construction
•Volcano bonds will be oversubscribed
•Huge surprise at @TheBitcoinConf

— Nayib Bukele ?? (@nayibbukele) January 2, 2022

As U.Today reported, Bitcoin’s hashrate has reached a new record high of 203.5 Exahashes per second, according to data provided by BitInfoCharts. This means that the network is the strongest it has ever been.

Hashrate refers to the total computing power needed for mining new coins and securing the network.

On-chain analytics firm Glassnode noted that the mining hashrate finished 2021 up 27% on the year, after recovering entirely from the aftermath of the China crypto ban, when around 53% of miners were shut off almost overnight.

? #Bitcoin $BTC Futures Volume (24h) just reached a 14-month low of $67,484,723 on #Kraken

View metric:https://t.co/1gh7hbl7TO pic.twitter.com/yBqG0E6PNz

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) January 3, 2022

Despite this positivity, volume across major centralized exchanges remains low. It might suggest weak market activity.

According to veteran analyst Peter Brandt, Bitcoin is yet to show key bottoming signs. In this scenario, analysts pinpoint $40,000-$42,000 as the crucial area to hold for Bitcoin, with action above it matching “accumulation.”