Bitcoin Plunges Below $20,000 After Recent Fed’s Historic Rate Hike

Bitcoin has finally lost the crucial level of $20,000 where it had been holding for a while with the community hoping for a price reverse.

Bitcoin trading below $20,000

At the moment, the world’s flagship crypto is changing hands at $19,227 on the leading European Bitstamp platform, printing a long red hourly candle which pushed the price 6.58 percent down.

Prior to that, three days ago, the US Fed Reserve conducted another historic interest rate hike in an attempt to tame the growing inflation in the country, when the consumer price index went up 8.6 percent.

That was the biggest rate hike in almost 30 years – since 1994. The rate was increased by 75 basis points. The news back on the day it was announced made Bitcoin rise about 4 percent but then it slightly dropped.

The previous major rate hike was made by the Fed during the first days of May, when it was increased by a half percentage point. That was the biggest hike in 22 years – the reaction of Bitcoin was similar to the current one: first it held steady and then started falling down.

Other factors that have pushed BTC below $20,000

Now, combined with other bearish factors – the red crypto market and its overall capitalization going below $1 trillion, along with multiple liquidations on the market, the stories with LUNA, Celsius crashing and 3 Arrows Capital filing for bailout – have pushed Bitcoin below the $20,000 level.

This was a historic high for BTC reached in December 2017 followed by a crypto winter. That was the first big ATH for the leading digital currency, which allowed other cryptocurrencies to follow to major highs.

Peter Schiff expects “a dead-cat bounce” from $8,000

Prominent Bitcoin critic, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and SchiffGold, Peter Schiff who has been criticizing BTC for years, has taken to Twitter to share a Bitcoin chart, where he shows a likely fall of Bitcoin below the $10,000 level to test $8,000.

He tweeted that BTC might demonstrate a dead-cat bounce off that level before it goes well lower. He warned Bitcoin holders that this could be their final chance to sell it while it is holding above $10,000.

This chart would look very weird if #Bitcoin didn’t drop down to the yellow support line. My guess is that there will be some kind of dead-cat bounce off that line, but don’t get too excited #HODLers. That bounce may be your last change to get out above $10K. Enjoy the weekend. pic.twitter.com/v06Lghvkoq

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) June 18, 2022

This is not the first time this year that Schiff has shared an expectation of Bitcoin falling below $10,000. However, recently, as covered by U.Today, he tweeted that his bearish prediction for BTC collapsing to $20,000 and Ethereum plunging to $1,000 had come true by nearly 100 percent.