Today, the Bitcoin price dropped another 25% to $4,435 from nearly $6,000, we hit yesterday. However, the digital asset is back above $5,000 with the trading volume reading a whopping $2.7 billion on top ten exchanges with real volume.

Altcoins followed Bitcoin and fell hard and are still in the red, recovering $12 billion after wiping out $30 billion from the entire market capitalization earlier in the day.

Fed Cuts Rate to Zero and Restarts QE

The price of Bitcoin rose yesterday on the back of the Federal Reserve slashing the interest rates to zero and launching a $700 billion QE program.

Bitcoin having a strong reaction to that Fed announcement. pic.twitter.com/zpRtMoNPRs — Mati Greenspan (tweets are not trading advice) (@MatiGreenspan) March 15, 2020

Bitcoin was front-running the news on the weekend as unlike the traditional markets, the crypto market is never closed down.

“We do know that the virus will run its course and that the U.S. economy will resume a normal level of activity. In the meantime, the Fed will continue to use our tools to support the flow of credit,” said Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

President Trump, who has been criticizing the Fed for not cutting rates faster and further as recently as Saturday, showed support for their latest move on Sunday.

“It makes me very happy and I want to congratulate the Federal Reserve. That’s a big step and I’m very happy they did it,” said Trump.

Dash for Cash

Despite the Fed’s emergency rate cut and QE, markets are in for another rollercoaster week. The S&P 500 opened on Monday by dumping over 8% and immediately tripping a trading halt. However, even after the circuit break, the blue-chip index, Nasdaq and Dow each were sharply lower.

The Fed is deepening the monetary policy response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak which has sickened over 3,200 people in the US as of Sunday. Just last week, the Fed boosted its liquidity injections in repo operations aggressively, by more than $1.4 trillion.

This has not only stocks but also the traditional safe haven asset gold hitting a low of $1,456.8, its lowest level since Nov. 27. The precious metal also traded below its 200-day moving average for the first time since Dec. 20, 2018.

Typically, the bullion performs well during market sell-off owing to its role as a safe haven but couldn’t escape the global stock market plunge since last week.

Gold & silver smashed as traders continue to liquidate anything they can find. At some point, given the $700B we’re printing & the trillions global banks are printing, these will be the best performing assets for years to come IMO. The question is where’s the bottom right now? — Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) March 16, 2020

“We are in a scenario where investors are selling whatever they can and this has also affected gold, probably more than it should be,” said Carlo Alberto De Casa, chief analyst at ActivTrades.

Interesting investment dilemma:

Every market dumped last week, which means "cash is king" … But if the government keeps pumping out more money to fight a recession the value of fiat could be devalued as well. — ฿TF%$D! (@CryptoHustle) March 15, 2020

Bitcoin still “highly dump susceptible”

Meanwhile, the crypto market is holding up quite well. While the stock market continues to plummet, Bitcoin is hovering around $5k with a strong volume.

“Due to the circuit breakers and loss limits in the stock market, we really can’t compare crypto to it anymore. Instead, bitcoin has transitioned to trading more like a commodity during these troubling times,” said Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics in his Monday newsletter.

Bitcoin isn’t’ getting the worst of depreciation as silver was down 20% at one point today.

“Truth is, everything is kind of falling together, just the stock markets have the added benefit of ample downtimes.”

However, below $5,200, the Bitcoin price is “highly dump susceptible,” according to trader Mr. Anderson. To “feel relatively safe,” the crypto asset needs to go back above $6,250.