Bitcoin up slightly amid dollar pullback, cryptocurrencies have limited gains
Kyiv • UNN
The bitcoin price rose slightly on Wednesday but remained in a trading range between $60,000 and $70,000 due to lingering concerns about rising interest rates and reduced excitement around ETFs.
Bitcoin's price rose slightly on Wednesday as the fall in the overnight dollar brought some relief, although persistent fears of higher interest rates and reduced excitement around ETFs kept the token in a trading range seen for more than a month, writes UNN citing Investing.com.
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Bitcoin rose 0.6 percent over the past 24 hours to $66,469.5 by 11:54 GMT (14:54 Kiev time). The token remained mostly in a trading range of $60,000 to $70,000 after hitting a record high of more than $73,000 in early March.
The world's largest cryptocurrency also saw limited gains, even though the tech stocks it typically tracks rose sharply this week.
The halving of bitcoins, which resulted in a 50% drop in mining fees, took place over the weekend with little price movement. The launch of the Runes protocol, which triggered a surge of activity on the network and raised transaction fees to a record high, also stimulated small changes in bitcoin prices.
Cryptocurrency prices as a whole saw limited price movement on Wednesday, amid how the sector was pressured by persistent concerns over higher and longer-term interest rates in the US.
Ethereum was up 3.1%, while XRP and Solana were up 0.05% and 3%, respectively.
Although cryptocurrency prices rose in the first quarter of 2024 on expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve would soon cut interest rates, optimism about such a scenario faded in April.
Strong inflation numbers and aggressive Fed signaling led traders to overestimate expectations for a rate cut in June.
Higher interest rates over an extended period of time do not bode well for cryptocurrency, given that the sector typically benefits from increased speculation in an environment with low rates and high liquidity.
The focus this week will be on additional data on the US economy, which is likely to influence the outlook for interest rates.
First-quarter data will be released on Thursday, and the data, the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, will be released on Friday.
