Bitcoin rose 0.6% to $59,964.0 by 09:13 ET (13:13 GMT), after flitting in a trading range of $50,000 to $60,000 for most of September.
Broader cryptocurrency prices also rose as markets positioned for lower U.S. interest rates, which are expected to benefit risk-driven, speculative assets.
Data this week showed BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust saw its first day of inflows in two weeks on Monday, breaking a sustained run of outflows seen since mid-August.
The inflows marked some turnaround in sentiment after uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election, interest rates and a potential recession weighed heavily on crypto prices across the board.
But trading volumes in U.S. Bitcoin ETFs still remained well below highs seen earlier this year, as enthusiasm over the ETFs petered out, especially amid retail traders.
Software firm MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) bought about $1.1 billion worth of Bitcoin between August 6 and September 12, the company disclosed last week, furthering its spot as the biggest corporate holder of the token. The company holds about $9.5 billion worth of Bitcoin.
The company said this week it will raise about $700 million through a private issuance of convertible bonds due 2028, which will be deployed towards redeeming earlier debt obligations and buying more Bitcoin.
Broader cryptocurrency prices drifted higher in anticipation of a widely expected interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve later on Wednesday.
World no.2 crypto Ether fell 0.4% to $2,319.94, while altcoins XRP, Solana, (AS:MATIC) and Cardano moved in a flat-to-low range.
Among meme tokens, Dogecoin added 0.25%.
The Fed is widely expected to cut interest rates at the conclusion of a meeting later on Wednesday. While markets were initially split between bets for a 25 or 50 basis point cut, CME Fedwatch showed traders growing more biased towards a bigger cut in recent sessions.
Lower rates free up liquidity that can then be deployed into risk-driven, speculative assets such as crypto.
In other developments, Australia’s central bank plans to shift its focus from developing a consumer-facing retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to a wholesale CBDC, Financial System Assistant Governor Brad Jones revealed at a fintech conference in Melbourne.
Unlike a retail CBDC, which the general public could use for everyday transactions such as buying groceries, a wholesale CBDC is intended for transactions between banks and financial institutions, including cross-border payments. Jones emphasized that the bank sees “the benefits to the economy as more promising, and the challenges less problematic, for a wholesale CBDC compared to a retail version.”
“This recognizes that unlike a retail CBDC that would be issued for use among the public, a wholesale CBDC would represent more an evolution than revolution in our monetary arrangements,” he added.
In addition, the Reserve Bank of Australia has committed to a three-year research initiative called Project Acacia, which will explore the future of digital money in the country. This will include a project focusing on wholesale central bank digital assets and tokenized commercial bank deposits, with the aim of understanding how concepts like “programmability” and “atomic settlement” in tokenized markets could benefit the Australian economy.
Ambar Warrick contributed to this report.
Source: Cryptocurrency - investing.com
