This Week in Crypto: Probability of rate hike dampens strength from tokens

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) prices, along with the broader crypto market, faced a significant pullback this week amid rising market volatility and the US Federal Reserve’s last minutes hinting that interest rates may rise further to curb inflation.

The value of BTC fell by 1.45% over the past seven trading sessions, with the old token now trading back below the critical level of $24,500. This decline follows the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released on February 14 , which reflected higher than expected inflation. Another reason behind the latest reversal is increased SEC regulatory activity focused on centralized exchanges.

In the meantime, a recent report from the chain Glass node indicates that BTC miners and short-term owners are on a selling spree while long-term owners and whales continue to rally. According to the experts, BTC is poised for more unprecedented swings in the coming weeks as macroeconomic volatility stirs unrest across financial markets.

Stacker (STX) charges higher as Altcoins defy market volatility

While the broader market, especially the top altcoins by market cap, extended their consolidation phase throughout the week, Stacks rallied by approximately 150% during the week, primarily due to the growing hype around Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs. With investors seeking more exposure to Ordinals, there has been a massive increase in overall network activity on the Stacks chain, helping the project return to its $1 billion market cap.

In addition to Stack’s triple-digit gains, Conflux (CFX), a new “high throughput” layer-1 blockchain network that uses a Tree-Graph consensus algorithm, also experienced strong upside.

The value of the CFX token rose by 119.50% over the past seven sessions due to a series of announcements. These include CFX’s integration with Little Red Book – the Chinese version of Instagram, a partnership with China Telecom and the Shanghai government to develop blockchain SIM cards (BSIM), and measures by the Hong Kong government to accelerate crypto adoption.

Filecoin (FIL) was another big outperformer after posting a seven-day gain of 46.5% as investor interest across “shared storage protocols” continues to strengthen. That said, one of the main reasons behind the increase in FIL’s value this week is the official launch date of the much-hyped Filecoin Ethereum (ETH-USD) Virtual Machine (FEVM).

Another big mover was Tezos (XTZ), which managed to sustain the reversal higher that began at the beginning of the year. The value of XTZ rose 21.70% over the last seven trading sessions thanks to the latest partnership with Google Cloud and Rarible’s new support for Tezo’s NFTs.

Aptos and Hedera Pull Back Amid Market’s Mixed Performance

Although altcoin momentum largely shook off the Fed’s interest rate comments, not all tokens escaped the recent decline among major cryptos. Layer-1 proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain Aptos and its native token APT faced a significant setback despite the network securing a spot in the upcoming California-based accelerator program hosted by Outlier Ventures. The value of the APT token fell by 15.6% during the week, with the total value locked (TVL) in the Aptos chain shrinking to $54.11 million.

Hedera (HBAR) was also destroyed by bears during the week. HBAR fell 10.3% over the past seven trading sessions, even amid a rise in total value locked (TVL). The 24-hour trading volume of HBAR also recorded a sharp decline, further affecting the token’s value.

However, investors are optimistic that HBAR will make a strong comeback, primarily because the HBAR Foundation – Hedera’s development arm – aims to disrupt the e-commerce content creation ecosystem with its new dApp called Unthink.ai.

Fantom (FTM), Mina (MINA) and ImmutableX (IMX) were among the other biggest losers this week. Much of the weak performance from these tokens can be attributed to the increased selling pressure due to uncertainty surrounding interest rate hikes.

Titanic NFT, $100M Web3 Grant and more

Although the market backdrop was more volatile over the past seven sessions, the industry continues to gather momentum across multiple vectors. Among the developments, Artifact Labs, Venture Smart Financial Holdings of Hong Kong and RMS Titanic (RMST) formed a new partnership to symbolize artifacts and memorabilia from the wreck of the Titanic. This initiative aims to generate funds for the sunken ship’s future research, recovery and preservation.

Meanwhile, amid the expanding Web3 landscape, PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) and Galaxy have raised $20 million in seed funding for Chaos Labs, a New York-based cloud platform focused on securing blockchains and protocols. This funding round was joined by 23 organizations and six angel investors.

Finally, Bosch and Fetch.ai have joined forces to establish the Fetch.ai Foundation to drive industrial use of advanced software, artificial intelligence (AI) and Web3 technologies. The initiative started with a grant of 100 million dollars to facilitate the continued growth of Web3-based solutions and services in mobility, industrial technology and the consumer industry in the long term.

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