Despite a plunge of about 65 per cent from its peak in November amid a broader wave of risk aversion, bitcoin remains a darling of some US cryptocurrency believers.
"Headlines about institutional unwinding and plummeting asset prices may scare off the average retail investor, but once again, crypto enthusiasts are a different kind of risk taker," Morning Consult, a prominent US-BASED consultancy, reported that 4,400 respondents took part in a survey organised by Morning Consult on June 18, when bitcoin (BTC-USD) fell below $20,000. "Instead of selling assets, some cryptocurrency holders in the US are 'all in' and preparing to hibernate for the crypto winter." Morning Consult reported.
While there has been a lot of crypto-related doom and gloom in recent months, as of mid-June, surveys showed that roughly 19% of U.S. adults said they owned cryptocurrencies, and 14% said they owned only bitcoin. The two percentages were the same as of January, Morning Consult reported.
Despite this, the monthly survey still shows that cryptocurrency holders' six-month price forecast for Bitcoin has dropped to $37,895 in June, from $45,732 in May and $49,779 in January, as the cryptocurrency market has fallen into a downturn, Zhitong Finance APP learned. In addition, consumers are increasingly distrustful of well-known cryptocurrency-related companies like Coinbase Global(Coin.us), Binance, and FTX, "mainly because these companies are too young to have established long-term relationships with consumers (or goodwill stores) and have yet to sufficiently differentiate themselves from each other." Morning Consult said in its report.
In terms of transactions, 28 percent of bitcoin holders said they bought bitcoin in the past month, down 6 percentage points from February, according to the survey. In June, 71 percent of respondents said they intended to buy bitcoin, compared with 76 percent in February.
"While cryptocurrency trading is moderate at the moment, this moderate activity is likely to Peter out if rising inflation and interest rates continue to put downward pressure on bitcoin prices and consumers have less disposable income (which prevents them from 'buying on the dips')," Morning Consult warned in its report.
In the cryptocurrency world, cryptocurrency prices are falling across the board as liquidity continues to shrink and real financial conditions deteriorate further. The collapse of the cryptocurrency market, which has seen tens of billions of dollars wiped out in value, is only getting worse as TerraUST, an algorithmic stablecoin, collapsed after it was untethered from the DOLLAR. Cryptocurrency lenders such as Celsius Network suspended all customer withdrawals, swaps and transfers in the wake of the incident, before the companies came close to collapse. Shortly thereafter, Three Arrows Capital, a crypto-focused hedge fund, went into liquidation.
Earlier (June 30), Mark Newton, head of technical strategy at INSIGHT, said bitcoin could hit bottom in July, with weekly and monthly technical analysis charts indicating that the bitcoin trend may be about to reverse.