At 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT), Bitcoin traded 0.5% lower at $65,217.0, posting losses of around 4% over the course of the last trading week, having fallen below $65,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 16.
The possibility of higher-for-longer U.S. borrowing costs has dampened enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency market, with bitcoin being the world’s biggest cryptocurrency.
A series of Federal Reserve officials have made it clear that they need to see more progress in taming inflation, even after last week’s weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation data, resulting in the U.S. central bank forecasting only one interest rate cut this year, compared to the prior forecast for three cuts.
At the same time, recent data, including Tuesday’s U.S. retail sales release, suggested that consumers are feeling the pinch of the elevated interest rates.
Activity is likely to be limited Wednesday, with the U.S. celebrating the Juneteenth holiday, but bitcoin could be trading near key levels that could determine the short-term trajectory of the largest crypto asset.
Bitcoin now exhibits the potential to rebound toward $67,000, according to the analytics platform Glassnode.
However, this level may create resistance, and overcoming it could set the digital currency on a path toward an even higher target of $69,500. On the flip side, the $65,000 mark is being watched as a crucial psychological support level, one that could play a pivotal role in maintaining investor confidence.
Bitcoin hit a record of $73,797.68 on March 14, and it last tested that level at the beginning of June.
There was more positive news looking at the broader cryptocurrency market, helped by positive legal news.
ETH/USD rose 2.4% to $3,547.25 after the software company Consensys stated that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission is dropping its investigation into whether Ether is a security.
“The Enforcement Division of the SEC has notified us that it is closing its investigation into Ethereum 2.0,” Ethereum developer Consensys said in a June 19 X post.
“This means that the SEC will not bring charges alleging that sales of ETH are securities transactions,” which the firm hailed as a “major win for Ethereum developers, technology providers, and industry participants.”
Elsewhere, Cardano and DOGE/USD both gained around 1.5%, Solana was largely flat, while XRP fell over 3%.
The long-awaited bitcoin exchange traded funds launched in January, and financial advisors are taking their time in adopting them, according to BlackRock’s Samara Cohen.
For now, about 80% of bitcoin ETF purchases have likely been coming from “self-directed investors who have made their own allocation, often through an online brokerage account,” she said, at a summit last week.
Cohen, BlackRock’s chief investment officer of ETF and index investments, noted that hedge funds and brokerages have also been buyers, based on last quarter’s 13-F filings, but registered investment advisors have been a little more “wary.”
However, if increased demand does push bitcoin to a new all-time high, $9.26 billion in shorts could be liquidated, according to Eljaboom, a Bitcoin investor and Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, which would prompt a dramatic price surge.
Source: Cryptocurrency - investing.com
