A sharp drop in the dollar, following weaker-than-expected nonfarm payrolls data, was the biggest benefactor of Bitcoin over the weekend. This helped the token recover from bear market territory after it sank to about $59,000 last week, about 22% below a record high hit in March.
Bitcoin fell 0.3% in the past 24 hours to $63,513.8 by 08:52 ET (12:52 GMT).
Markets were now seen pricing an increased chance of a 25 basis point cut by the Federal Reserve in September. Such a scenario bodes well for cryptocurrencies, given that they usually thrive in a low-rate, high-liquidity environment.
A cooling labor market gives the Fed more impetus to cut interest rates. But Friday’s reading also comes after five straight months of stronger-than-expected payrolls readings, while inflation- which is a key factor for the Fed- remains comfortably above the central bank’s 2% annual target.
Near-term gains in Bitcoin were held back by anticipation of more cues on U.S. rates, specifically from a string of Fed officials set to speak in the coming days.
FOMC members Thomas Barkin and John Williams are set to speak later on Monday, followed by Neel Kashkari on Tuesday.
But despite its recovery over the weekend, Bitcoin remained squarely within a trading range seen through most of March and April. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has floundered between $60,000 and $70,000 amid waning hype over the crypto market.
Capital flows into Bitcoin investment products, specifically the spot exchange-traded funds approved earlier this year, were seen slowing substantially over the past month. Bitcoin ETFs saw capital outflows for the past three weeks.
Other major cryptocurrencies witnessed mixed performance on Monday, reflecting the uncertainty in the broader market.
World no.2 crypto Ethereum slid 1.2% to $3,095.04. XRP remained unchanged on the day , while Solana rose 3%.
Bitcoin remained the sole driver of crypto valuations, with the token accounting for nearly 55% of overall crypto valuation.
In other crypto-related developments, less than 10% of stablecoin transaction volumes are organic or come from real users, Bloomberg News reported, citing new findings by Visa (NYSE:V) and data platform Allium Labs.
Of the approximately $2.2 trillion in transactions in April, only $149 billion originated from “organic payments activity,” per the report. The analysis excluded transactions from bots and large-scale traders to “isolate those made by real people.”
The stablecoin market supply is currently valued at around $150 billion, with Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) dominating the market, holding shares of 75% and 22%, respectively.
“There is also a lot of noise in this data given that blockchains are general purpose networks where stablecoins can be used across a range of use cases with transactions that can be initiated manually by an end user or programmatically through bots,” Visa said in a note last month.
Despite the disparity between total transfer volume and bot-adjusted volume, the report found consistent growth in monthly active stablecoin users, totaling 27.5 million across all chains.
Source: Cryptocurrency - investing.com
