After a week of consolidation for the entire crypto sector, November 28 brought another wave of bearish momentum, causing Bitcoin to slip 3%, dragging the rest of the sector with it.
Indeed, the primary reason for the downward push is the outbreak of COVID-related protests in China, after Xi Jinping’s administration imposed a “zero-COVID” policy, which includes stricter lockdowns.
The protests acted as a scarecrow for investors, which relocated their investments to more risk-free alternatives such as the U.S. dollar, bonds, and the Japanese Yen, which all marked an increase.
Bitcoin, the current crypto leader, went through a rollercoaster ride in November, losing over 20% in the past 30 days. Nevertheless, BTC saw a 9% upswing that pushed it to $16,800, after being pushed down to the sub-$16,000 territory on November 19 and 21.
Experts are considering the break from the four-day consolidation period to skyrocket Bitcoin past the previous Monday’s high at $17,188 and June lows at $17,593. If the momentum continues, Bitcoin could easily target the $19,000 range, as the Relative Strength Index shows that the overall momentum is still bullish as it continues to produce higher lows since November 9.
However, if Bitcoin price fails to hold above the $15,700 support level, the price per BTC could enter a freefall until $13,575, which is one of Bitcoin’s long-term support zones.
A bad month for cryptos
The month of November has been filled with iconic events, that are still casting a shadow over the crypto sector, the most prominent being FTX’s collapse, which also added a dose of stress on the Asian markets.
Indeed, Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange and sister trading house Alameda Research brought immense stress on the sector as very few cryptos in the top 100 rankings are actually trading with a positive price increase in November. It turns out that Litecoin (LTC), Trust Wallet Token (TWT), PAX Gold (PAXG), and OKB are the only ones with a notable price increase, while Solana (SOL) and Near Protocol (NEAR) are among the heaviest losers in November.
November in cryptos: what happened?
No VC funding
For starters, JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou commented that the rate at which crypto projects are financed by venture capital is shrinking, reaching only $10 billion annually, which is a third of the inflows in 2021.
The lack of VC funding is due to monetary tightening, and a massive drop in the demand for riskier assets.
Stablecoins destabilized
Another hit on the crypto sector was the November de-pegging of some of the most secure crypto assets to date – stablecoins. The de-pegging came just days after FTX collapsed.
Indeed, November saw Tether and other stablecoins lose ground and fall below the $1 peg, which keeps them from inflation, with Tether (USDT), the most popular stablecoin in the world, suddenly dropped to $0.97 due to redemptions, while algorithmic stablecoins like Tron's algorithmic USDD fell as low as $0.952.
FTX’s demise affected all of Asia
As the news about the FTX saga shifted from gossip to real havoc, with South Korea, Singapore, and Japan feeling the FTX collapse the most, with a combined 15.7% traffic share loss over the past 30 days.
The downfall managed to spread to Taiwan and India, but crypto users quickly shifted to other exchanges like OKX and Binance.
Is Dogecoin back in the game?
The now eighth-largest crypto project by market capitalization, Dogecoin, may be one of the least anticipated players to hit the crypto news in November. However, the love story between the meme coin and Twitter’s new owner – Elon Musk, has pushed DOGE to its April 2022 levels, before undergoing a heavy correction.
Nevertheless, the past seven days were extremely fruitful for DOGE, as the meme coin jumped $0.0724 to $0.1057 in just six days.