Bitcoin price hits $27,000 for new 9-month high as Fed injects $300B
Bitcoin (BTC) hit new nine-month highs on March 17 as the latest events in the growing US banking crisis boosted crypto markets.
Bank Crisis Volatility Sees $27,000 BTC Price
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $27,025 on Bitstamp before consolidation.
At the time of writing, the pair circled $26,500 with volatility ongoing after the Wall Street open.
A catalyst for fresh upside had come in the form of Federal Reserve balance sheet data overnight, which showed nearly $300 billion injected into the economy as part of the banking crisis.
The event effectively reversed months of liquidity stripping under the Fed’s quantitative easing (QT), and commentators were quick to call the restart of the opposite phenomenon – quantitative easing (QE).
“They’ll tell you it’s not QE, but the numbers don’t lie. About half of the reduction from a year of quantitative tightening has been erased in a week,” trader, analyst and podcast host Scott Melker, known as “The Wolf Of All Streets,” commented.
Bitcoin thus followed a strong development for US stocks the day before.
For market commentators, it was the belief that the uptrend could continue despite stocks producing sideways action on the day.
“Bitcoin is trying to fly – this resistance line will break sooner or later,” popular analysis resource Stockmoney Lizards in summary about a chart showing an ascending resistance trendline for BTC/USD.
Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading company Eight, saw specific levels up and down.
“Chopperino is landing on Bitcoin, which means we will probably have some sideways structures,” he told followers on the day.
“Needs to hold $26K. If it holds, $28-30K is next. If it loses $26K, I’m betting around $25K for some longs. Relatively easy to understand.”
Hayes: I’m ditching stocks for crypto
In his latest markets blog post, Arthur Hayes, former CEO of derivatives giant BitMEX, revealed a pivot of his own.
Related: Why is the crypto market up today?
In a comprehensive dissection of current Fed behavior and its potential ramifications, Hayes concluded that Bitcoin was a safe haven — unlike stocks.
“For me and my portfolio, I’m pretty much done trading stonks. What is the point? I usually buy and hold and don’t trade around my positions very often. If I believe what I wrote, then I’m signing up for underachievement,” he revealed.
“If there’s a short-term trading opportunity where I think I can make some quick fiat duckets and then take my profit and buy more Bitcoin, I’ll do it. Otherwise, I’ll liquidate most of my stock portfolio and move it to crypto.”
Hayes added that there was always a chance he could be wrong about Bitcoin’s “upward trajectory” and that adjustments to his strategy would follow if that were the case.
– The end was always known in advance. YCC is dead, long live BTFP!” he concluded by referring to the Fed’s Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) being a disguised form of Yield Curve Control (YCC) “repackaged in a new, shiny, more palatable format”.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
