Crypto Markets Add $100 Billion Following the Fed’s 75 BPS Rate Hike (Market Watch)
Unlike the previous Fed interest hikes, bitcoin went on a roll this time, adding over $2,000 in hours to set a new weekly high. The altcoins are also well in the green on a daily scale, with ETH soaring above $1,600 and more massive gains from the likes of Polkadot, ETC, UNI, and others.
Bitcoin Taps $23K
After the relatively quiet weekend in which bitcoin stood primarily around $23,000, the working week started with a few substantial price drops. The first came early on Monday and saw $1,000 gone. The second, 24 hours later, mimicked the previous one.
As such, BTC had dropped below $21,000 to a weekly low. The asset recovered some ground and stood around $21,000, but the community expected another volatile day after the US Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, which took place last night.
Price fluctuations indeed came but, unlike some previous examples, actually brought gains for the primary cryptocurrency. Bitcoin spiked almost immediately to $22,000 and continued upwards to a 6-day high of over $23,000 registered a few hours ago.
Somewhat expectedly, this led to $400 million worth of liquidations. Since that local peak, though, BTC has lost some ground and now trades just under $23,000. Nevertheless, its market cap has surged to $440 billion.
Alts Back in Green
As it typically happens during highly volatile trading days for bitcoin, most altcoins have reacted with even more fluctuations.
Ethereum is the leader in terms of daily gains from the larger-cap alts. Perhaps fueled by the latest developments on the Merge front, ETH is up by more than 10% and sits above $1,600.
BNB has jumped by 6% and stands close to $270. Similar gains come from Cardano, Ripple, Solana, Dogecoin, MATIC, Shiba Inu, and Avalanche. Polkadot is up by double digits as well and trades north of $7.5.
ETC and UNI are among the best performers from the mid-cap alts.
The overall crypto market cap has reclaimed the coveted $1 trillion mark after a massive $100 billion daily increase.
OhNoRipple via https://www.ohnocrypto.com/ @Jordan Lyanchev, @Khareem Sudlow