Bitcoin Falls Below $24.5K
By Laxmikant Khanvilkar
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, has dropped below $24,500 as fears of contagion from often-embattled Credit Suisse spread across the European banking sector.
Bitcoin had slipped to $23,946 at one point before regaining ground to recently trade at $24,280, down 1.44% over the 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, was hovering around $1,652, down 3%.
BTC had soared past $26,500 on previous day after the release of a mildly upbeat U.S. consumer price index (CPI) inflation data for February. The 6% CPI improved on the previous month’s reading and offered investors looking for more monetary policy dovishness hope the U.S. Federal Reserve would at least temporarily stop its recent diet of interest rate hikes.
The Swiss National Bank came to the rescue of CS by announcing it would provide CS with liquidity “if necessary”.
Analysts believe that the banking turmoil could ultimately become a bullish moment for Bitcoin.
The crypto market capitalization has dropped by 1.73% in the last 24 hours and is currently at $1.07 tn. The total crypto market volume over the same period has decreased by 17.43% to a value of $83.34 bn. The portion of DeFi market volume stands at 9.85% while the stablecoins account for 94.93% of the total crypto market volume. Bitcoin’s dominance has increased by 0.52% to 44.16%.
Meanwhile, the CME FedWatch Tool showed that currently around 55% of traders believe the Fed will not raise interest rates at its next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting starting March 22. An additional 45% expect the Fed to boost the rate by 25 basis points (bps), a stark change from a week ago when an increasing number of observers felt the Fed would increase the rate by 50 bps.
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