"That's what he expected, what's your prediction?"
The bullish cryptocurrency market has fallen again as leading digital asset firm Matrixport indicated an ETF filing that lacked critical requirements could push back approval of the spot BTC ETF until the second quarter of 2024.
Plus the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler refuses to accept crypto in the United States (US), so it may take him a while to vote to approve the spot BTC ETF.
If ETF approval fails, Matrixport says the crypto market that is facing a crash could wipe out $5.1 billion in the long term and this means BTC price could drop 20% to $38,000 or $36,000.
Recently when the price of BTC plunged from $45,308 to $41,454, almost $600 million in positions were liquidated while the total of all open positions recorded a decline from $18.66 billion to $17.72 billion.
Not only that, the estimated leverage ratio which is the exchange's open interest divided by their coin reserves also saw a drastic drop due to the crypto market suddenly crashing on January 3, 2024.
Reportedly, there are 33.15% of investors who bought BTC over the past year in profit but if those investors decide to book profits then it could trigger another crash.
Therefore, the crash can only be the beginning of a follow-up if the approval of the spot BTC ETF is delayed until the second quarter of 2024, BTC can repeat a similar cycle as in 2019 where it was able to perform a rather steep correction.
There is no denying that Matrixport's target for BTC rejection is about $36,000 to $38,000, but the worst case scenario could see BTC drop to $30,000 or even lower at $24,800.