BTC, ETH have had a difficult 24 hours; Fed Chair Powell to blame? 

The cryptocurrency market declined with the broader financial markets as of 26 August. This decline followed the hawkish remarks made by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at the Fed’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming economic conference on 26 August. 

The S&P 500 index fell by 2.15%, the Nasdaq posted a 2.7% decline, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also went down by 1.8%.

Before Powell – After Powell pic.twitter.com/jggPwdXgS5

— Lawrence McDonald (@Convertbond) August 27, 2022

Down 7% in the last 24 hours, data from Santiment revealed that Bitcoin [BTC] dropped down to a six-week low following Powell’s comments. 

The leading altcoin, Ethereum [ETH], was not spared. Prior to Powell’s comments, ETH traded above $1,700. However, following the speech, the price per ETH declined by 10% and exchanged hands at $1,485.40 24 hours later, data from CoinMarketcap revealed.

Are you getting rekt?

According to data from Coinglass, in the past 24 hours, 121,224 traders have been liquidated. Total liquidations across the general cryptocurrency market stood at $379.94 million within the same period.

For the king coin, BTC, 4,750K BTC worth $95.31 million has been taken off the market. Seeing the most liquidations in the past 24 hours, data from Coinglass revealed that $165.84 million worth of ETH tokens have been taken off the crypto market.

Source: Coinglass

A significant drop in buying pressure for BTC was spotted on a daily chart. As of this writing, key indicators to track trading volume and money inflows into the BTC market were southbound. Deep in the oversold territory, the coin’s Money Flow Index (MFI) was pegged at 25.78.

Furthermore, in a downtrend, BTC’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) was positioned at 31. Finally, far from the (0.0) center mark, the leading coin’s Chaikin’s Money Flow (CMF) posted a negative -0.23. All of these indicated that the FUD occasioned by Powell’s speech had caused several traders to distribute their coins.

Source: TradingView

ETH did not fare any better. As of this writing, its RSI was caught in a downtrend at 37. Also oversold, its MFI marked its spot at 25 at press time. With a continued decline in buying pressure for the leading alt, its Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) was a negative -0.07 at the time of press.

Source: TradingView

The current FUD in the market has led panic sellers to decrease their crypto holdings. However, data from Santiment revealed that following Powell’s hawkish statements on the state of the American economy, crypto traders have taken to shorting the market.

According to the on-chain analytics platform:

“As these bets against crypto prices come in, the likelihood of a weekend rebound increases.”

Source: Santiment