Bitcoins Recoils On Hawkish FOMC Minutes
By Laxmikant Khanvilkar
Risky assets, especially cryptocurrencies, are not off the hook yet, as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) gave no indication that they are considering pausing rate hikes in the near future.
The minutes from the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Federal FOMC suggested both hawkish and dovish sentiments among the participants, but notably missing was any discussion of a pause in the U.S. central bank’s rate hike cycle.
Lack of clarity sent Bitcoin down more than 3% for the day at around $23,800 prior to the news release, and currently remains around $24,100 level.
Ethereum was most recently quoted near $1,640.
After a raft of strong economic data and a number of hawkish Fed speakers, markets now anticipate not just another 25 basis point hike in May, but the chance of the central bank hiking by 50 basis points in March.
The global crypto market capitalization is currently at $1.10 trillion, representing a 0.61% decrease over the past 24 hours. The total crypto market volume over the same period was $63.35 billion, a 4.90% decrease. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) accounted for 12.33% of the total 24-hour volume, with a total of $7.81 billion. Stablecoins, on the other hand, made up 90.34% of the total crypto market volume with $57.24 billion.
In terms of dominance, Bitcoin’s market share decreased by 0.14% from the previous day to 42.43%.
Meanwhile, investment giant BlackRock is offering an exchange-traded fund (ETF), the iShares Future Metaverse Tech and Communications ETF (IVRS), which will focus primarily on tech companies that are exposed to the metaverse, even as some institutional investors appear to have lost interest in the concept after its immense popularity during the recent bull run.
The top five companies that are included in the holdings are Meta Platforms (META), Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDIA), Netease (NTES) and Roblox (RBLX).
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