Bitcoin price cracks after rumors that massive selling occurred over weekend

Bitcoin price slid lower Monday after it lost ground over the weekend after the US Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers on Friday showed a slight tilt higher. However, the number was still lower than its last number, which was revised upwards, making the drop even bigger. Nonetheless, traders disregarded this and stayed bearish as the new number came out slightly higher than the median expectations, putting pressure on cryptocurrencies overall.

Will Powell save the day?

Bitcoin price got additional headwinds over the weekend as several blogs, Twitter feeds and news outlets reported that massive chunks of sell orders were placed in BTC. The apparent motivation behind it was that traders do not see a turnaround before next year and rather want to dump the stack than sit on it and risk more losses. Once regular trading started on Sunday night in Asia, it appeared stable with no massive sell-off, while the US Dollar backed off.

BTC is set to enter a volatile week as the Fed is the first central bank to report inflation on Tuesday, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak on Wednesday with the dot-plot curve being communicated before that. Crucial, thus, with BTC primed to be underpinned at $16,020 as the Fed will confirm a slower pace and start penciling in a plateau for 2022. Possibly markets will go for the bullish outcome and pump up BTC toward $18,000 by the end of this week.

 BTC/USD daily chart

Risk to the downside easily comes with either a higher inflation number against the previous one on Tuesday or another 75bp hike on Wednesday from the Fed. That would trigger a massive wave of US Dollar strength and see BTC drop back to $16,020. As that level has already had many tests and even a short breach, expect $15,000 to be tested rather on the back of that. Translated in performance, that would mean a 12% decline against the current trading price.