Fed rate hike

All is not going to plan for bulls, warnings say, as $44,000 support hangs in the balance.

Bitcoin (BTC) continued its downturn into Wednesday's Wall Street open with its first test of $44,000 since the start of April.

BTC price posts near two-week lows

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching 12-day lows of $43,801 on Bitstamp, down over 7% from the month's high.

The move defied positive triggers in the form of fresh buy-ins from MicroStrategy and Terra, but analysts were instead eyeing macro factors as the next potential BTC price booster.

Jeroen Blokland, portfolio manager at asset manager Robeco, said that the United States 10-year treasury yield, on an uptrend throughout the year, should reverse direction and provide some respite for risk assets.

"We are not there yet," he nonetheless cautioned on the day.

US 10y yields jump to 2.56% thx largely to Brainard’s hawkish remarks, which raised fears ahead of FOMC minutes on Wed. pic.twitter.com/SpvFPKeFIB

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) April 6, 2022

In a potential countermove, the Fed revealed that May should bring the start of "aggressive" balance sheet reduction, this marking an end to "easy money" policy, which many had feared would pressure risk-asset demand.

"It is of paramount importance to get inflation down,” future Fed vice chair Lael Brainard said in comments at a conference this week, quoted by the Financial Times among others.

“Accordingly, the committee will continue tightening monetary policy methodically through a series of interest rate increases and by starting to reduce the balance sheet at a rapid pace as soon as our May meeting.”

Inflation continued to trouble sentiment beyond the U.S., with Eurozone annual producer price inflation jumping by the most on record in February — over 31%. Coming before the Russia-Ukraine war, it is likely that future readouts will be even higher.

Current spot price zone crucial to hold

In a troubling environment, price watchers were prepared to cut spot some slack, calling for $44,000 to hold as a bullish foundation.

Related: Bitcoin retests key level that sparked 66% BTC price gains in 2021

#BTC Daily

+ EMAs stacked in the same order
+ Price testing the 200 at the 0.618 retracement

All while trying to exit a 2-month long accumulation zone.

Hold this 44-45K area and we're probably continuing up the mid-50s. pic.twitter.com/buzl4vvFms

— TechDev (@TechDev_52) April 6, 2022

Private fund manager and CryptoQuant contributor known for his popular Twitter account @gaah_im argued that $44,400 was the level to defend in order to avoid a dive which could potentially take the market to $37,000.

"Something is off and the coming days will show what is happening," trader Crypto Ed added, striking a more concerned tone.

A failure to hold $45,000, something which subsequently played out, would thus open up the road to the low $43,000s, he said in his latest YouTube update.

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