Top 3 Trending Coins: Crypto Slide Sees BTC Drop to Low $21Ks, ETH to $1.7K and DOGE Under $0.07

Key Points

• Bitcoin dropped over 8% on Friday amid a broad crypto sell-off, hawkish Fed jitters and technical selling.
• BTC was last trading in the low $21,000s, with Ethereum also experiencing sharp downside and falling back to $1,700.
• Dogecoin also fell and has now unwound all of its recent pump that saw it briefly surpass $0.09.

Bitcoin (BTC) Slides Amid Hawkish Fed Jitters/Technical Selling Pressure

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, led a broad sell-off in cryptocurrency markets on Friday, as traders fretted about the hawkish tone of Fed policymaker rhetoric this week, and as the US dollar and US bond yields surged. A stronger dollar makes USD-denominated Bitcoin more expensive for the holders of international currency, thus reducing demand, while higher bond yields increase the so-called opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as Bitcoin, also reducing demand.

BTC was last changing hands in the $21,300s, having slumped nearly 9% in the last 24 hours, and hit its lowest levels since late July. On the day, BTC is down around 8%, its worst one-day drop since 16 June. The cryptocurrency now trades around 15% lower versus last week’s highs in the low-$25,000s. Aside from jitters about Fed hawkishness that has triggered broad risk-off flows across asset classes on Friday, traders are also citing technical selling as weighing on Bitcoin.

Three days ago, the cryptocurrency broke out of a short-term uptrend that it had been in, after failing to break and hold convincingly above $25,000 area resistance on numerous occasions in recent weeks. With BTC now below its 21 and 50-Day Moving Averages at $23,430 and $22,220, the door is open for a test of late-July lows just under $21,000.

Bitcoin’s latest pullback has exaccerbated fears that its rally from June’s annual lows under $18,000 has just been another bear market rally, as opposed to the start of a longer-term rally back towards record highs. Some social media users labelled Bitcoin’s most recent rally as another “headfake”.

#Bitcoin Faking out for the 3rd time in a row: pic.twitter.com/Vk6yZK9FrO

— Crypto Rover (@rovercrc) August 19, 2022

Ethereum (ETH) Also Suffering, Falls Back to $1,700

Not to be outdone by its larger cousin, ETH, the token that powers the Ethereum network, has also dropped by about 8% on Friday and was last down around 9% in the last 24 hours. ETH/USD was last changing hands close to $1,700 and is now below its 21DMA at $1,770 and nearly 17% versus recent highs above the $2,000 level.

Ethereum technicians are now eyeing a test of support in the form of a resistance-turned-support area around $1,600, and the 100 and 50DMAs in the respective $1,565 and $1,520 areas.

On a more positive note, Ethereum senior developer Tim Beiko confirmed on Twitter that the Ethereum merge will officially go live on 15 September.

We then discussed the TTD we set on the CL call last week. Although there have been some minor fluctuations in hashrate, the ETA for 58750000000000000000000 is still ~Sept 15, so we agreed to keep it. In short, TTD confirmed ✅! You can track the ETA at https://t.co/WTUWIu0GzK

— Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth 🐼 (@TimBeiko) August 18, 2022

Elsewhere, one of the largest exchanges in the US, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, said on Thursday that it would soon be introducing trading in ETH future options.

2/ CME Group to launch ETH Options on September 12th pic.twitter.com/1GluaRfugO

— Crypto-Gucci.eth ᵍᵐ🦇🔊 (@CryptoGucci) August 19, 2022

Moreover, Yuga Labs, the creator of the Ethereum-based Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Non-fungible Token (NFT) collection announced its will only recognize BAYC NFTs on the Ethereum Proof-of-Stake chain after the merge, in the event that a Proof-of-Work Ethereum chain is created.

The Ethereum network is gearing up for the merge mid September. In line with the broader Ethereum community, in the event of a viable PoW fork, Yuga intends to only recognize NFTs on the PoS ETH chain as subject to the relevant NFT license and eligible for Yuga-offered utility

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) August 17, 2022

Dogecoin (DOGE) Unwinds All of Recent Pump

Dogecoin fell back below $0.07 per token on Friday and was last down around 14% in the last 24 hours, making it one of the worst performing cryptocurrencies in the top 20 by market capitalization. Dogecoin has now unwound all of its pump from last weekend/early this week that saw DOGE briefly rally as high as $0.09 per token.

The cryptocurrency is now back within the $0.06-0.08 range that dominated from late June to early August. Longer-term, the cryptocurrency remains in a downtrend and bears will be eyeing a test of annual lows around $0.05.