Bitcoin Drifts Near $29.2K; Unfazed by Macro Events. Ada, Sol and Matic Are in the Red
Bitcoin appeared largely unfazed by recent macro developments on Friday, but major altcoins that fell during the US trading session were mostly stable, albeit in the red.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, recently traded just under $29,200. It’s been essentially flat for the past 24 hours. BTC has been trading between $29,000 and $29,500 for the past 11 days. It seems immune to external events that used to have a bigger impact on the price and continue to weigh on other risky assets.
Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market value, also followed a similar trend, trading at $1.834, up 0.4% from Wednesday. Other cryptos stabilized after falling more sharply on Thursday, citing investor concerns over rising yields around the world, a quarter-point interest rate hike by the Bank of England that reignited fears of further monetary tightening in Europe, and the largely depressing US jobs data, which suggested inflation would continue, stabilized as a problem.
ADA, SOL and MATIC are tokens for the Cardano Solana Polygon smart contract platform. They are all down more than 2.5% over the past few days. UNI, the native cryptocurrency of decentralized exchange Uniswap, continued to decline, falling more than 1.3%.
The Market Index (a measure of how crypto markets are performing) recently rose 0.52%.
Bob Baxley wrote in an email: “I suspect we will be trending sideways, maybe for several months or even into next year.” Bob Baxley is a major contributor to DeFi infrastructure provider Maverick Protocol. There isn’t enough fresh capital flowing into the space at this time to allow for a meaningful rise.
Baxley also added that he was optimistic that the changed conditions would bring “a new influx of users and capital”.
He wrote, “I say this because Ethereum’s fundamentals are getting stronger and its applications are becoming more sophisticated and user-friendly.”
The US stock market declined slightly as bond yields rose, indicating a drop in investor appetite for risky investments. The S&P500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended down 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.
“We’re certainly nearing the peak in interest rates, but we may have to raise another one or two times depending on how stubborn inflation is,” Xu wrote. “I’m not convinced that inflation will go down as quickly as many people hope. We still have a long way to go before we reach the bullish phase.”
Xu continued, “We’ve seen such a meteoric rise…, especially for bitcoin, I don’t think these levels are being held in any meaningful way or can even be surpassed. What remains is the money that is already in digital assets and is recycled again and again through various coins.
