Bitcoin price crashes, some top altcoins lose more than 8%

Bitcoin price fell for a second day, hitting its lowest price in nearly two weeks as a variety of bearish factors along with riskier traditional market assets like stocks affected the cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, the leading cryptocurrency is changing hands at $ 46,959.

BTC / USD 4-hour chart | Source: TradingView

Bitcoin price slips to $ 46,000

BTC changed hands within a few hours for around $ 46,000. Previously, the price of the largest cryptocurrency by market value on the Bitstamp exchange fell to as low as $ 45,479, its lowest level since December 4th.

Cryptocurrency analysts say a new bearish sentiment may have crept into the market following the Federal Reserve’s announcement earlier this week to accelerate the unwinding of monetary stimulus measures. Many investors say that the US Federal Reserve’s money printing in recent years has made cryptocurrencies more attractive as an inflation hedge. As a result, faster withdrawals could put prices under pressure.

Bitcoin’s recent decline has reduced the cryptocurrency’s annual return to 60%. This compares with 24% for the S&P 500. BTC is currently 34% off its previous all-time high, but is still up 63% so far.

ETH / USD 4-hour chart | Source: TradingView

Overall, several major altcoins have seen significant losses in terms of the crypto market in the past 24 hours. Shiba Inu, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Solana all fell around 8% and became the biggest laggards of the day.

Almost all of CoinMarketCap 100 is red, with only two exceptions. Yearn.finance’s (YFI) token is up 34.11% after the team behind the decentralized financial protocol announced it would buy back the cryptocurrency. Waves (WAVES) is also up 6% against the general downward trend in the market.

The total crypto market cap is $ 2.189 trillion and the bitcoin dominance is 40.6%.