Heavy losses on the cryptocurrency market on Wednesday helped Tether’s USDT to jump ahead of bitcoin cash to claim the fourth position in the crypto rankings by market capitalization.
As the price of top-ranked bitcoin fell through the $9,500 mark – a level traders had defended for nearly two months – the whole crypto market appeared to capitulate.
This left USDT, the stablecoin that is reportedly backed one-for-one by the US dollar, the only digital asset in the top 10 ranked by market capitalization not to be nursing severe losses. Indeed, Tether’s token gained 0.3% to $1.005.
Tether’s market cap is now at $4.12 billion, leapfrogging it above bitcoin cash – whose 21% fall over the last 24 hours has driven its market cap down to $3.99 billion.
Sharp Losses for Crypto
By midday in London on Wednesday bitcoin had fallen 16% over the previous 24 hours to $8,402, with losses on global equity markets doing little to promote sentiment. Significantly, bitcoin’s price fell below its 200 day moving average, with very little volume supporting it.
“A very bad sign,” according to Twitter-based cryptocurrency commentator CryptoHamster:
BTC went below 200DMA.
No pull-back, no volume.
A very bad sign.
Sure, we need to see the candle close, but still.$BTC $BTCUSD #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/wD8D2ucfvB— CryptoHamster (@CryptoHamsterIO) September 25, 2019
Bitcoin bear Peter Schiff also took to Twitter to explain a rather worrying technical pattern that he believes could take the price of bitcoin rapidly down to $4,000.
#Bitcoin has finally broken below the support line of the large descending triangle it has been carving out for months. This is a very a bearish technical pattern, and it confirms that a major top has been established. The risk is high for a rapid decent down to $4,000 or lower!
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) September 24, 2019
