Major coins were trading mixed late Thursday, as their market cap fell 0.20% in the last 24 hours to $1.10 trillion as of 8:30 PM EST.
| Cryptocurrency | Gains (+/-) | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | -0.48% | $24,049 |
| Ethereum | +0.97% | $1657 |
| Dogecoin | -0.90% | $0.084 |
What happened: Apex crypto Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) traded below $25,000 as investors continued to assess the Fed’s ongoing dialogue around monetary policy and examine jobs data.
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) traded up nearly 1%, but below $1,700. Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) was trading at $0.084, down 0.90% in the last 24 hours.
US stocks rose on Thursday as investors showed support for the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes despite choppy trading. The S&P 500 rose 0.53% to end the day at 4,012.32, snapping back from its four-day losing streak. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.72%, ending the session at 11,590.40.
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The US Department of Labor reported that initial jobless claims for the week ending February 18 fell by 3,000 to 192,000, which is below the consensus estimate of 200,000. This strong jobs data has been a challenge for the Federal Reserve as it looks to reduce inflation from 6, 4% to the target rate of 2%.
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Top news: Cathie Woods Ark Invest just added over 213,000 Coin base (NASDAQ:COIN) shares worth about $13 million to ARK Innovation (ARKK) and Next Generation (ARKW) exchange-traded funds.
Coin base Thursday launched Base, a layer 2 network built using Optimism’s OP Stack. The testnet for Base has already been started by the crypto exchange.
Spotify is making its first foray into the Web3 world with a new pilot involving “token-enabled playlists.” With this groundbreaking program, non-fungible token holders can now connect to their wallet and enjoy curated music from around the world.
Analyst notes: “As Wall Street vacillates over Fed rate hike expectations, Bitcoin wobbles around the $24,000 range. The next few months will be key to find out that the rest of the world embraces crypto, said Edward Moya, senior analyst at OANA, in a note seen by Benzinga.
The IMF issued a statement on elements of effective guidelines for cryptoassets. “No big surprises came from this 1,131 word paper, but it outlined what they are focusing on; to protect fiat currencies, excessive capital flow volatility, supervision, joint surveillance across regions and protection of financial stability,” Moya noted.
“Bitcoin seems to be stuck in a range right now, and that can only change if we see risk aversion run amok on Wall Street,” he added.
Cryptanalyst Michael van de Poppe said that Bitcoin fell towards the lower end of the $23,300 resistance area. There has been a significant pullback from this area, indicating that further consolidation may be needed before the continuation towards the $30,000 mark.
We fell towards the lower end of the range and previous resistance around $23.3K.
Significant bounce from that area too #Bitcoinprobably some more consolidation and from there continuation towards $30K. pic.twitter.com/prmQFXB5oY
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) 23 February 2023
Santiment’s data suggests that the amount of Bitcoin held by large players (the so-called ‘Shark and Whale’ addresses) remains stable in the $23,000-$25,000 range. However, the data also shows that the number of Bitcoin addresses with balances between 1,000 and 10,000 has increased in the last 3 months, along with the 10-100 and 100-1000 range.
The amount of sharks and whales #Bitcoin Addresses remain flat as the $23k to $25k price range continues. If 1K-10K $BTC addresses begin to rise similarly to 10-100 and 100-1K $BTC addresses have in the last 3 months, it would be an outbreak sign. pic.twitter.com/P7HwCGeMoT
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) 23 February 2023
Analyst Kaelo said BTC Chart looks ready for next leg up “sooner than you think.”
The chart looks ready for the next stage up sooner than you think. pic.twitter.com/23kc3TtqfB
— KALEO (@CryptoKaleo) 24 February 2023
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