Bitcoin BTC price holds steady as investors look ahead to next FOMC meeting

Good morning. Here’s what happens:

Prices: Bitcoin stabilizes comfortably above $29K. An analyst says investors are now looking for assets that retain their value.

Insight: Captain Kirk drops his first NFT collection and speaks boldly about crypto’s potential in a Consensus 2023 discussion.

Bitcoin Holds Above $29K; Ether rises above $1.9K

Bitcoin brushed aside concerns about renewed banking turmoil and slowing U.S. economic growth to stay comfortably above $29,000 throughout U.S. trading hours on Thursday.

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap recently traded at around $29,500, up about 2.2% in the last 24 hours. BTC topped $30,000 at one point, close to peaks earlier in the week, but still well off April’s peak near $31,000. Still, investors seem to have forgotten about Wednesday’s dramatic flip as the crypto fell to around $27,200 amid a mass liquidation of short and long positions and separate unfounded rumors about bitcoin sales – by the US government and about crypto from the failed exchange Mt. Gox – before they recovered. .

Since surging roughly 40% in January, bitcoin and other cryptos have been stubbornly resilient to industry crashes and greater macroeconomic uncertainty.

“The operative word here is resilience,” Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of crypto-asset management company Grayscale Investments, told CoinDesk TV on the opening day of the Consensus 2023 conference in Austin, Texas. “Despite recent setbacks, whether it’s trust or certain businesses that were once integral to crypto that no longer exist, what we’re seeing is resilience.”

Sonnenshein added: “It’s really encouraging time and time again as this industry is challenged, it demonstrates its strengths and comes out stronger.”

Grayscale and CoinDesk share the same parent company, Digital Currency Group.

Ether was recently trading above $1,910, up about 0.8% from the same time on Wednesday. Other major cryptocurrencies were recently up marginally a little more than 36 hours after falling well into the red. The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of crypto market performance, recently rose 0.8%.

US stock markets rose as surprisingly strong earnings from tech giants Microsoft, Google and most recently Meta trumped concerns about unexpectedly weak 1.1% first-quarter GDP growth and struggles at regional bank First Republic. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500, which has a strong technology component, climbed 2.4% and 2%, respectively.

Investors will now focus on next week’s interest rate decision from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The CME FedWatch Tool currently shows an 87% probability of a third consecutive rate hike of 25 basis points, although Edward Moya, senior market analyst for forex market maker Oanda, wrote in an email that the Fed is close to ending this. kind of monetary hawkishness. The Fed will be able to go ahead with one, maybe two more rate hikes, but then that should be it,” Moya wrote. “Today’s economic data painted a picture of an economy slowing, inflation temporarily accelerating, and the labor market softening .”

Meanwhile, Bob Baxley, chief technology officer at decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Maverick Protocol, told CoinDesk’s Jocelyn Yang that bitcoin’s performance in recent days reflects investor confidence in the crypto’s ability to hold value even during troubling events.

“Bitcoin and other cryptoassets have clearly performed as the safe haven that many had hoped this class of technology would be,” Baxley told CoinDesk in an email.

William Shatner rushes to Web3 at warp 9.

The original Star Trek captain and longtime Twitter crypto guy officially dropped his NFT release, Infinite Connections, at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2023 conference.

Infinite Connections consists of two collections: Cosmic Explorer, featuring 2,500 NFTs that feature a Shatner 3D avatar alongside artwork that explores scientific themes such as quantum physics and sonic vibrations. Each also includes a physical action figure of Captain James T. Kirk, the role Shatner is best known for, each hand-signed by Shatner with a quote from the character.

The second collection is Timeless Voyager, which includes 1000 NFTs with 2D artwork of future technology and the cosmos. There’s no action figure included, but “select” holders will have access to unspecified IRL capabilities.

“NFTs are slowly becoming more artistic,” Shatner said backstage at the conference. “These, developed by Orange Comet, are among the most artistic I’ve ever seen.”

Orange Comet CEO Dave Broome, who also spoke at the conference, revealed how the deal with Shatner came about, and how Shatner’s intellectual curiosity was a key component. “This is a man at 92 who is still asking, and still has an ability to learn and embrace technology and understand what it can do,” Broome said. “What we’re interested in doing is taking someone like the iconic, legendary William Shatner and all the millions and millions of fans he has and bringing them over to web3.”

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“First Mover” was live in Austin, Texas as Consensus 2023 continued with special guests including SkyBridge Capital Founder and Managing Partner Anthony Scaramucci, ShapeShift Founder Erik Voorhees, Solidus Labs Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Kathy Kraninger, Polygon Labs Chief Policy Officer Rebecca Rettig and EY Global Blockchain Leader Paul Brody.