By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
The crypto market turned gloomier, with recent outperformers such as memecoins taking a bigger hit than major cryptocurrencies, as sentiment on Wall Street turned cautious ahead of Friday’s jobs data and the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs.
The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) lost 8.6% over the past 24 hours, leading to losses in all other sectors. The DeFi Select and Metaverse indices both fell more than 5%.
Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency by market value, fell below $90,000 during Asian hours, extending Wednesday’s pullback from over $93,600 and was recently trading down almost 2%. Charts showed immediate support at around $89,200, stemming from the widely followed 50-day simple moving average.
“The end of the week will provide an answer to whether this curve has become a support level or whether we saw a false breakout at the start of the year,” Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at The FXPro, said in an email.
Other majors such as ether (ETH), solana (SOL), Privacy-focused zcash (ZEC) crashed 15% after the development team behind the token left Bootstrap, a nonprofit created to support the project.
The risk aversion follows further outflows from US-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs suffered net outflows of $729 million, reversing more than 50% of the $1.16 billion inflows from the first two days of the week. Appetite also remains weak for Ether, XRP and SOL ETFs.
Among other key developments, Bitcoin’s BVIV index, which measures 30-day implied volatility, remains little changed at around 45% for the fifth day in a row, despite signs of a rise in its Wall Street counterpart, the VIX index.
The VIX rebounded to nearly 15%, its highest level since Dec. 19, indicating some caution ahead of Friday’s jobs report, which could influence interest rate expectations. Additionally, Kalshi prediction market participants assign a 30% probability to the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of US tariffs on imports, implying a 70% probability that they will be reversed. The decision could cause volatility across all asset classes, including BTC.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s value against major fiat currencies, held steady near 98.70, holding on to recent gains to offer bearish cues to risk assets. Stay vigilant!
Read more: For analysis of current altcoin and derivatives activity, see Crypto Markets Today
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
