Original author: Frank
原文来源：Foresight News
"When the cannon goes off, ten thousand taels of gold"?
At about 9:00 a.m. today, with the breaking news of "a strong explosion near Tehran, the capital of Iran" and "explosions from Iran, Syria, and Iraq" occupied the front page headlines, the situation in the Middle East under the "turn-based" back and forth between Israel and Iran was tense again, and the price of gold quickly broke through $2,400, soaring for five consecutive weeks.
At the same time, Bitcoin, which was once regarded as "digital gold", did the opposite, falling below the integer mark of 63,000 USDT, 62,000 USDT, and 61,000 USDT in a row, and once lost 60,000 USDT, reaching a recent low of 59,587 USDT (OKX spot data, the same below), while Ethereum also fell below 3,000 USDT and 2,900 USDT in a row, reaching a minimum of 2,864 USDT over the same period.
Coinglass data shows that in the past 4 hours, the whole network has liquidated more than 100 million US dollars, of which more than 94.57 million US dollars, and the copycat market is even more wailing, and halving abound in the past half a month.
Quite dramatically, as of the time of writing, OKLink data shows that it has been less than 22 hours since the fourth halving of Bitcoin, but the market has poured cold water on everyone with a posture of "asset halving in advance", making market expectations more and more pessimistic.
Whether this round of decline is a trend reversal or a medium-term pullback has become the key for everyone to participate in the next market trend.
The reason for the plunge is geometric
A brief summary of the reasons that may promote the sharp decline of the current round should be mainly divided into two dimensions: internal and external, including factors such as geopolitical conflicts, the Fed's collective hawkishness, and the internal inducements of ETF fund outflows.
The impact of the conflict in the Middle East on global financial markets
First of all, we need to make it clear that since the institutional strides into the market last year, especially after the passage of spot ETH at the beginning of this year, Bitcoin's "safe-haven asset" attribute has actually become a kind of metaphysics, and it is essentially a "risk asset" - more closely related to the global macro environment and the bull and bear cycle (recommended reading: ""When the cannon goes off, gold is ten thousand taels"?
And the serial conflict between Iran and Israel has to some extent exacerbated the possibility of geopolitical risks in the Middle East dragging down global oil supply - just after the latest news of the conflict this morning, the price of US WTI crude oil futures rose by more than 2.5% during the day, once standing at $85 / barrel, and the price of Brent crude oil futures also rose by as high as more than $89 / barrel.
If the conflict expands even to involve the nuclear facilities of both sides, it may cause oil prices to continue to rise, which will undoubtedly make the anti-inflation process in the United States worse, and then push up the possibility that the Fed will choose to continue to raise interest rates in the future.
At the same time, this has also made the recent rumors of the US stock market suspicious - affected by this morning's news, the three major US stock index futures fell more, Nasdaq 100 futures fell more than 2%, S&P 500 futures fell 1.5%, and Dow futures fell 1.32%.
The Fed's overall tone turned hawkish
In addition, in the past two months, the market's original expectations for the Fed to pivot to interest rate cuts in the middle of this year have been significantly shaken, mainly because more and more senior Fed officials have begun to mention "raising interest rates":
First, the "Fed's third-in-command", New York Fed President Williams, warned that the Fed would raise interest rates if the data showed that the Fed needed to raise interest rates to achieve its goal, and Atlanta Fed President Bostic also said that he was open to raising interest rates if inflation rose in the United States.
More critically, in Powell's speech this week, he also said that the lack of further progress on inflation may be appropriate to allow higher interest rates to work for a longer period of time, and Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Timiraos, who has always been regarded as the "new Fed news agency", commented that the Fed's outlook has changed significantly, which seems to have shattered their hopes that they may "preemptively" cut interest rates.
You must know that at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the market expected the Fed to cut interest rates 5-7 times in 2024, and it was the first rate cut in March.... This also prompted US Treasury yields to soar again, with the 10-year yield breaking through the 4.75% mark, and Wall Street investment banks even warning of a short-term or "return to the 5% era".
At the same time, a series of financial-related data in the United States have been released intensively since April, including retail sales data, as well as initial jobless claims, non-farm payrolls, etc., all of which have performed strongly, and at least from the data dimension, there is room for interest rate hikes again.
In this context, it is reasonable for some risk funds to adjust their positions.
ETF funds have seen net outflows for 5 consecutive days
In addition, there is a signal worth paying attention to - according to SoSoValue data, the total net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETF on April 18 was $23.15 million, which has been a net outflow for 5 consecutive days.
As of the time of writing, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $52.41 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio (market capitalization as a percentage of Bitcoin's total market capitalization) of 2.82%, and a historical cumulative net inflow of $12.24 billion.
It is particularly worth noting that at present, Ethereum has taken the lead in falling to near the 120-day line, and the weekly line of BTC/ETH is also three consecutive negative candlesticks, which is extremely ugly in form.
You must know that the 120-day line has always been regarded as one of the most important bull and bear dividing lines, so whether Ethereum can hold this trend line and rebound strongly, and the subsequent performance of Bitcoin, is particularly crucial.