The crypto market cap has fallen by 1.97% in the last 24 hours and stood at $3.05 trillion at the time of writing. Since January 14, the price had fallen by 6.95%.
Bitcoin [BTC] fell below the $94.5k level on January 19, triggering a market-wide sell-off.
US President Donald Trump has announced tariff measures against Europe, and this latest tariff-driven uncertainty has helped explain why crypto has fallen in value today. Kobeissi Letter noted in a post on X that US stock market futures also extended their session losses.
The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.6% on trade war concerns. On January 19, $700.5 million in positions were liquidated, followed by $301.7 million the next day at the time of writing.
Institutional demand versus dominance of spot and derivatives sellers
Bitcoin is usually a good indicator of crypto market sentiment. Altcoins sometimes behave like leveraged BTC contracts and witness amplified moves in the same direction as Bitcoin.
They have generally reacted much more bearish than Bitcoin, which explained why Bitcoin dominance has moved slightly higher over the past six weeks. While Bitcoin could see sparks of continued growth spot ETF inflowslike last week, this does not guarantee a stable bullish trend.
Institutional demand was also high. CoinGecko Bitcoin Treasury data showed significant Bitcoin additions to Strategy holdings [MSTR] and Metaplanet. AMBCrypto reported that Saylor hinted at another acquisition after adding 13,627 BTC to his reserves on January 12.
Again, this is not enough to sustain an uptrend.
Crypto analyst Axel Adler Jr revealed that sellers had regained control of the derivatives after weeks of bullish pressure. The Taker Buy/Sell Ratio showed that the taker aggression Z-score of -1.81 over a 90-day period was consistent with a seller-dominant regime.
The benchmark’s recovery to neutral levels would be an encouraging sign that sell orders in the market were declining. For now, more downward pressure is possible in the coming days.
Final thoughts
- Crypto fell today due to a combination of reasons, mainly the trade war between the US and EU that has led to risky market sentiment.
- Selling pressure from Bitcoin takers has increased since Monday’s sell-off, and further losses are possible in the coming days.