Why is crypto down today? How Bitcoin’s fall affected the market

• Prices are attracted to liquidity, and Bitcoin’s price movements generally govern crypto market-wide trends.
• Bitcoin’s bearish structure and momentum in the short term could result in further losses.

The total market capitalization decreased by 0.8% over the past 24 hours, sitting at $2.06 trillion at press time.

Per AMBCrypto’s look at CoinMarketCap, among the top 15 crypto assets, excluding stablecoins, only Binance Coin [BNB], Ripple [XRP], and TRON [TRX] have trended upward over the past week.

Also, Coinglass‘ data showed $221.9 million worth of liquidations over the previous day, with the largest of them on Binance on the BTCUSDT pair for $10.81 million.

The sharp price drop could be linked to the U.S. government moving 10,000 BTC to Coinbase Prime.

Examining liquidity pools

Source: Hyblock

Prices are attracted to liquidity, and Bitcoin’s movements generally govern crypto market-wide trends. Over the past week, a considerable cluster of liquidity has built up at the $57.4k level.

It came after BTC poked its head above $60k.

That move encouraged bulls to go long, building liquidity below $58k. On the 15th of August, BTC crashed as deep as $56k, clearing out the pocket. Further south, the $54.8k was the next bearish target.

Understanding Bitcoin and its price trends can help explain why the crypto market is down or up on any given day.

FUD from the U.S. government moving BTC to a centralized exchange might have catalyzed the price drop, too.

What next for the crypto market?

Source: BTC/USDT on TradingView

Bitcoin has a bearish market structure. As we have seen, most major altcoins also have a short-term bearish trajectory. This meant that we would likely move downward till the 19th of August.

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2024-25

A reversal thereafter might be possible, but it also depends on new developments not affecting the sentiment too negatively.

The bearish momentum of Bitcoin and a lack of buying pressure meant that the crypto market and BTC are likely to go down further.