Bitcoin could extend drop to $15K amid tighter financial conditions, Stifel says

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) could drop even further to $15K as speculators weigh an environment of increasingly tighter financial conditions and sinking money supply, Stifel analysts Barry Bannister and Thomas Carroll wrote in a note Thursday. Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin is off another 10% to $28.7K. Y/Y growth in M2 money supply, a broad measure of money (i.e. cash and checking deposits) in circulation, has been decelerating from a peak of +27.5% on Feb. 22, 2021, compared with +8.6% as of April 4, as seen in the chart below. Furthermore, the analysts said bitcoin (BTC-USD) has much more downside that that of equities, which "thrive on excess liquidity," Bannister and Carroll said. Of course, that excess liquidity experienced after the Federal Reserve's extraordinary accommodative monetary policy is now drying up as the central bank pivots quickly to more hawkish actions. At the last Fed meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee had lifted the target