Bitcoin Hike Momentum
Bitcoin's Post-Rate Hike Momentum
Prices
Bitcoin's Post-Rate Hike Momentum Stalls Despite the price drop late on Thursday, optimism persisted in crypto markets a day after few monetary policy observers were surprised by the modest price hike by the U.S. central bank.
Bitcoin was just above $23,500 at the time of writing, down 1.8% in the last 24 hours, but still well above the $23,000 support it reached last week. Investors' growing optimism regarding inflation and the economy has led to a 40% increase in the largest cryptocurrency this year. Markets were encouraged by the Federal Reserve's 25 bps increase, believing that bankers were succeeding in their effort to keep prices from rising too much.
Mark Connors, head of research at Canadian investment manager 3iQ, stated in an interview with CoinDesk TV's "First Mover" program that despite bitcoin's recent gains, it was still trading below its 200-day moving average.
"We believe that as we get closer [to the 200-day average] – which is a huge fundamental catalyst for bitcoin, and we have no reason to believe it will be again – that [bitcoin] will see an even further move higher," Connors stated. "This is a huge fundamental catalyst for bitcoin."
Connor's remarks were in line with a CoinDesk report that said bitcoin and the S&P 500 were getting closer to a bullish technical signal that was easy to track, a golden cross. When the price of a security moves above its 200-day simple moving average (SMA), a golden cross is created on the price chart. Ether fared similarly on the day, dipping late to also fall 1.8% from Wednesday at the same time. Recently, the second-most valuable cryptocurrency traded hands for close to $1,650. Late in the day, other major cryptocurrencies fell, either flattening out or falling into negative territory. The token for the layer 1 blockchain Aptos, APT, fell 6.5 percent to lose some of this year's gains. In January, APT rose more than any other token. The Gala Games play-to-earn platform's token, GALA, fell 5%. A measure of the crypto market's performance, the CoinDesk Market Index, was recently down 1.8%.
Investors' hopes for inflation outweighed their concerns about Apple and Alphabet's disappointing fourth quarter results on Thursday and a wider slowdown in the once fearsome technology sector, and as a result, equity markets enjoyed a banner day, with the tech-focused Nasdaq rising 3.2% and the S&P 500 rising 1.4%, respectively. "Edward Moya, senior market analyst at the foreign exchange market maker Oanda, wrote in an email that financial markets believe that inflation will decline more quickly than the Fed is currently thinking."
According to crypto data provider group Crypto Compare, investors poured more than $200 million into these kinds of products in January, and 3iQ's Connors noted recent increases in interest in 3iQ's crypto exchange traded funds.
Connors jokingly observed, "We had more smiles." In order to meet demand, we had to import additional coins. It was positive. Additionally, the numbers weren't outlandish. It was a healthy and pleasant number."
Connors added, "The present growth can be sustained." The price point is excellent, in my opinion. The kind of people who really want in are those who are purchasing. Even though we're up, there's no FOMO going on right now. I really like this layer of buyers coming in because they've done the work and removed themselves from the FTX mess as bad actors and fraudsters.
Crypto Trading Volume Rises After Fed Decision Bitcoin and ether saw their trading volumes
rise following the FOMC's rate decision.
day and 40% from the $23 billion worth of BTC that was traded the day before the Fed's
decision.
The volume of Ether was 60% higher than before the FOMC announcement and 30%
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