Bitcoin targets $16.7K amid fear BNB may ‘drag whole crypto market down’

Bitcoin (BTC) looked set to ditch $17,000 after the Dec. 16 Wall Street open as United States equities continued to fall.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

Analyst: $240BNB has nothing but air below it

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked new intraday lows of $16,743 for BTC/USD on Bitstamp.

The pair had abruptly dived nearly 3% earlier in the day, compounding losses, which immediately followed one-month highs.

Ongoing concerns over largest global exchange Binance pervaded the mood, these coming despite the best efforts of CEO, Changpeng Zhao, to dispel what he called “FUD.” As Cointelegraph reported, longtime crypto traders were similarly skeptical of the credibility of the “craziest rumors” about the crypto exchange sector.

Nonetheless, markets refused to give them a break, and beyond Bitcoin, warnings increased over the fate of Binance’s in-house token, Binance Coin (BNB).

BNB/USD fell to near $240 on the day, marking its lowest levels since July.

“BNB has nothing but air below it,” popular trader and analyst Matthew Hyland acknowledged.

“As the 3rd largest non-stable crypto, if it crashes here it’s going to drag the whole crypto market down with it.”

BNB/USD 1-day candle chart (Binance). Source: TradingView

The move fed into bearish traders’ longer-term plan, with Il Capo of Crypto notably already calling for a bottom below $50.

Pressure increased around Binance itself on the day, with its proof of reserves report deleted by auditor Mazars Group, which added that it would no longer work with crypto industry clients.

In a square-off on Twitter, meanwhile, Zhang publicly ridiculed a post from outspoken television personality Jim Cramer, who said that he “would trust my money more in Draftkings than i would binance.”

“Now we are safe!” Zhang responded.

Crypto limps lower with U.S. stocks

Related: Bitcoin Santa Claus rally unlikely, according to on-chain and derivatives data

Beyond crypto, U.S. stocks saw another weak performance at the open, the S&P 500 down around 1.4% at the time of writing.

For Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, the situation was not as bad as it may seem.

“Normal Reversion Can Feel Like a Crash — The propensity for correlations to gravitate to 1-to-1 when the stock market declines may be a primary factor for all assets in 2023, particularly commodities,” he wrote in part of commentary alongside an explanatory chart.

Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index vs. S&P 500 annotated chart. Source: Mike McGlone/ Twitter

Earlier, McGlone nonetheless cautioned that the marked was displaying potential similarities to the period before the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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