Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Sink Deeper As Recession Worries Overshadow Crypto Market: Arthur Hayes Has This Advice For Risk-Averse Traders

Aniket Verma

March 11, 2025

Benzinga

Leading cryptocurrencies extended losses Monday, mirroring the stock rout, as investors get jittery over recession concerns.

Cryptocurrency	Gains +/-	Price (Recorded at 8:30 p.m. ET)
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC)	-4.54%	$76,982.36
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH)	-9.88%	$1,821.41
Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE)	-11.00%	$0.1478

What Happened: Bitcoin sank below $77,000 to hit a four-month low. The leading cryptocurrency was down 29% from its all-time high, wiping away nearly all of the gains since Trump's victory in the presidential elections.

Ethereum slipped below $1,800, its lowest since October 2023. Year-to-date, the second-largest cryptocurrency has plunged over 45%.

The downturn comes despite President Donald Trump signing an executive order for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve last week.

About $926 million was liquidated from the cryptocurrency market in the last 24 hours due to the slump, with $742 million in long positions getting erased.

That said, Bitcoin's recovery to $85,000 would liquidate about a billion in short positions.

Bitcoin's Open Interest fell 3.83% over the last 24 hours, while the number of traders positioned short on the asset soared to 52% of the total.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remained in the "Extreme Fear" zone, signaling anticipation of further downsides.

Top Gainers (24-Hours)

Cryptocurrency	Gains +/-	Price (Recorded at 8:30 p.m. ET)
Movement (MOVE)	+7.89%	$0.4805
MANTRA (OM)	+2.79%	$6.25
Mantle (MNT)	+2.46%	$0.6795

The global cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.54 trillion, contracting 4.25% in the last 24 hours.

Stocks came crashing down Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 890 points, or 2.08%, to close at 41,911.71. The S&P 500 slipped 2.69%, ending at 5,614.56, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plunged 4% to close at a six-month low of 17,468.32.

Concerns over the U.S. economy weighed on the market after Trump seemed to acknowledge the possibility of a U.S. recession in an interview over the weekend.

See More: Best Cryptocurrency Scanners

Analyst Notes: Well-known on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant assessed whether the prevailing market phase was the beginning of a bear or bull dip.

"In a typical bull market, people move their sats in profit, resulting in an SOPR greater than 1, unlike in a bear market. From this perspective, the bull market still seems to be in play," the firm said, referring to the Spent Output Profit Ratio, a metric used to measure the profitability of transactions.

CryptoQuant also noted that the funding rates still resembled the 2020-21 bull market pattern.

Is it the beginning of a bear or bull dip?

"For bulls to be convinced that the market has shifted, SOPR and funding rates need to drop below critical levels more frequently than before." – By @aytekin466

Full post 👇https://t.co/3kT2yfRD2E pic.twitter.com/OuFXfI2JcH
— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) March 10, 2025

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX and Chief Investment Officer at Maelstrom Fund, urged his followers to remain patient.

"BTC likely bottoms around $70,000. 36% correction from $110,000 ATH, v normal for a bull market," Hayes said.

Hayes urged that risk-averse investors wait until the central bank eases monetary policy before deploying capital.

The plan:

Be fucking patient. $BTC likely bottoms around $70k. 36% correction from $110k ATH, v normal for a bull market.

Then we need stonks, $SPX and $NDX to enter free fall. Then we need TradFi muppet to go under.

THEN we get Fed, PBOC, ECB, and BOJ all easing to make…
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) March 11, 2025