Bitcoin Price Update

Bitcoin (BTC) fell 4.5% over the past 24 hours, trading below $57,000 amid a selloff in U.S. stocks and a weak Asian market.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was priced at approximately $56,696, while Ether (ETH) decreased by 6.4% to $2,366, as reported by The Block’s crypto price page. The overall cryptocurrency market experienced a decline of 4.74% in the past day.

Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research, attributed the decline primarily to disappointing August ISM data, leading to a selloff across all traditional finance (TradFi) risk assets. The U.S. ISM manufacturing index for August recorded 47.2%, a 0.4 percentage point increase from July, but still indicated contraction.

Chung explained that Bitcoin’s 4% dip occurred in two phases. The initial decline was moderate compared to its 17% plummet during the market meltdown on August 5, also triggered by growth concerns, suggesting the BTC market had effectively adjusted to growth risks ahead of other TradFi assets.

He described the second decline as a knee-jerk reaction from Asia-based investors to poor performance in the Asian stock markets. Both Japan’s TOPIX and South Korea’s KOSPI experienced drops of 2.7% and 2.46%, respectively, while U.S. chipmaker Nvidia faced a 9.5% loss on Tuesday.

Justin d’Anethan, head of APAC business development at crypto market maker Keyrock, pointed out that following the long weekend in the U.S., various assets—traditional and crypto—are dealing with bearish sentiments. Given that crypto markets operate 24/7 and are more volatile, they have been particularly impacted.

Investors are also preparing for the upcoming non-farm payroll data set to be released this Friday. Augustine Fan, head of insights at SOFA.org, noted that September could be a pivotal month with potential economic repercussions, including a likely Federal Reserve rate cut in the next two weeks, which will clarify the extent of the economic slowdown.