Bitcoin Drops To $42.4K; Fed Deals A Blow
By Laxmikant Khanvilkar
Virtual digital assets (VDA) slid lower in the past 24-hours as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish comments dashed early rate cut hope. In a much anticipated note, the Fed left its benchmark fed funds rate range unchanged at 5.25%-5.5% following the first Federal Open Market Committee meeting of the year. No indication of rate cut in the coming months, risky assets including cryptos turned lower.
Bitcoin prices fell below $43,000 mark. It dipped to $42,300 from its daily high of $43,700. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation was recently changing hands 1.2% lower at $42,400.
At his post-meeting press conference, Powell said, “I don’t think it’s likely that the committee will reach a level of confidence by the time of the March meeting to identify March as the time to [cut].”
As the prospects of March rate cut fizzled out, so did the investor appetite for risky assets.
Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency, too slipped in the negative territory. It recently traded at $2,282 losing 2.6%.
Other major cryptocurrencies such as Cardano’s ADA, Avalanche’s AVAX and Polkadot’s DOT dropped 3%-4%, while Solana’s SOL lost over 6% during the day buckling below $100.
The global crypto market cap decreased 7.11% to $1.53 trillion in the last 24 hours. The total crypto market volume fell 31.9% to $39.7 billion. Total volume in DeFi is currently $5.7 billion, and all stablecoins are $14 billion, representing 14.4% and 35.2%, respectively, of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently 54.4%, showing an increase of 3.3% over the day.
The IC15 index, the barometer of the top fifteen tokens, edged up 0.07% to 55,176.
Meanwhile, analysts have maintained that the Bitcoin has a limited downside as the largest crypto appears to be consolidating between $44,000 and $42,000 without clear direction. At the lower range of these levels could act as support where buyers might step in, they added.
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