Bitcoin slips below $44,000; ether, dogecoin, Shiba Inu, other cryptos prices today also plunge

Cryptocurrency prices today slumped with Bitcoin declining below $44,000, to its lowest level since December flash crash. The world's most popular and largest digital token by market capitalization was trading nearly 7% lower at $43,167. Bitcoin, famed for its volatility, has shed more than $25,000 since hitting a record of almost $69,000 in early November.

“Bitcoin corrected sharply and plunged to $43.5K level soon after the Federal Reserve re-confirmed plans to hike the interest rates. The crypto markets saw a huge selling volume during this period. The 4-hourly trend for BTC indicates a bottom breakout from the pattern. The next support for BTC is expected at $40,000,” said Siddharth Menon, COO of WazirX.

Ether, the coin linked to ethereum blockchain and the second largest cryptocurrency, also plummeted more than 8% at $3,494, as per CoinDesk. On the other hand, Dogecoin prices fell about 6% to $0.15 whereas Shiba Inu was down over 7% to $0.000030. Meanwhile, Binance Coin rose also plunged nearly 7% at $476.

Meanwhile, other digital tokens like Solana, Polygon, Uniswap, Stellar, Cardano, XRP, Tether, Litecoin were also trading with cuts in the range of 5-7% over the last 24 hours. The global crypto market capitalization, led by decline in cryptos, slipped 6% at $2.22 trillion, as per CoinGecko.

“Ethereum and other Altcoins followed Bitcoin to correct sharply. Ethereum fell below $3,500 levels before recovering back and settling above that mark. On the daily time-frame, the ETH trend can be seen breaking out below the descending wedge pattern. An immediate support is expected at $3,400 mark,” Menon added.

The final week of 2021 saw a third straight week of investment outflows from cryptocurrency funds, said digital asset manager CoinShares in a report. Outflows from the sector totaled $32 million last week. Total assets under management ended the year at $62.5 billion in 2021 versus just $2.8 billion at the end of 2019.

Ethereum's inflows doubled to $1.3 billion in 2021 from $920 million in 2020. Bitcoin, by contrast, saw a 16% increase to $6.3 billion.

The recent swings in cryptocurrencies come amid a volatile period for financial markets. Spiking inflation is forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy, threatening to reduce the liquidity tailwind that lifted a wide range of assets.

(With inputs from agencies)