As Bitcoin’s (BTC) price slides to 2022 lows, Bitcoin bears have come out to play. Popular names in the BTC space including FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and John Carvalho heeded words of caution overnight, while long-standing gold proponent Peter Schiff and eternal pessimist CryptoWhale were keen to kick the coin while it was down.
A liquidation cascade on Thursday took out more than $318 million BTC positions, over 88% of which were long. The price corrected to around $42,500 per BTC.
News of a mining ban in Kazakhstan and the United States Federal Reserve’s decision to hike rates were likely causes for the slump in crypto market confidence.
Schiff tweeted that if “Bitcoin breaks $42K it’s headed to $30K. If it breaks $30K it could crash to $15k. All this might happen very soon.” He encouraged BTC-leveraged investors to sell now to avoid liquidation at lower prices.
CryptoWhale, a self-proclaimed crypto analyst and perma-bear with upward of 400,000 Twitter followers, said, “Bitcoin is going under $10K this year. Don’t forget that.” A relentless Bitcoin bear, the account has called for a sub-$10,000 BTC since as early as October last year.
Related: Raoul Pal says ‘reasonable chance’ crypto market cap could 100x by 2030
The Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index is at lows not seen since 2021, which is usually the time that BTC OG’s clarion calls are sounded. It registered a score of 15 or extreme fear on Thursday morning.
Bankman-Fried didn’t exactly assuage investors’ concerns about the bearish woes. He recommended that the best thing to do in a bear market is to build before hastily clarifying that “down today doesn’t mean down tomorrow.”
Finally, Carvalho, CEO of recently launched Synonym Software, didn’t mince his words when referring to the recent BTC price movements:
EVERYONE must endure the brutal Bitcoin rite of passage of a bear market where their investments are severely under water.
This includes Elon, Jack, and Saylor.
And you.
— John Carvalho (@BitcoinErrorLog) January 5, 2022
As he points out, the BTC market can be a baptism of fire for newcomers. It could be some time before the bears return to hibernation.
