Cryptos Plunge Again On Fed Rate Hike Fears

Crypto markets whipsawed from a bullish Wednesday to a bearish Thursday, digesting the likely effects of Fed’s interest rate lift-offs and Balance Sheet runoffs. Despite indications from the Fed that a larger rate hike was not immediately on the table, traders started discounting a higher rate hike in June, dragging stocks down heavily. Sentiment spilled over to the digital assets arena as well, and cryptocurrencies are now trading more than 7 percent lower on an overnight basis.

Crypto market capitalization currently is at $1.65 trillion versus $1.8 trillion almost 24 hours ago. Only a handful of cryptos are trading in the green zone early on Friday.

Bitcoin touched a low of $35,714.30 in the past 24 hours. While Bitcoin’s market dominance remains at 41.5 percent, only 46 percent of the holders are making profits at current prices. It is currently trading at $35,971.05, down 8.81 percent on an overnight basis.

The U.S. SEC has on Thursday approved the Valkyrie XBTO Bitcoin Futures ETF under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, raising hopes that a spot ETF would also be approved soon under the provisions of the same Act.

Ether is trading at $2,691.36, 8 percent lower than Monday’s levels. Around 63 percent of ETH holders are making profits at current prices. Ethereum dominates 19.7 percent of the overall crypto market currently.

Stablecoins dominate 11.3 percent of the overall market. Despite the fall in the overall crypto market capitalization to $1.65 trillion, from the level $1.75 trillion on Wednesday, the market capitalization of the top 5 stablecoins has remained constant at $177 billion.

3rd ranked Tether (USDT), 5th ranked USD Coin (USDC), 10th ranked TerraUSD (UST), 11th ranked Binance USD (BUSD) and 17th ranked Dai (DAI) rank among the top 5 stablecoins.

From among the top 20 crypto currencies, BNB (BNB), XRP (XRP), Terra (LUNA), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and Polygon (MATIC) have declined between 5 and 10 percent, whereas Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), Polkadot (DOT) and Near Protocol (NEAR) have dropped between 10 and 15 percent.

18th ranked TRON (TRX) is down only 3 percent on an overnight basis.

Down the hierarchy, 48th ranked Fantom (FTM), 51st ranked Axie Infinity (AXS), 56th ranked Waves (WAVES) and 77th ranked Zilliqa (ZIL) have plunged between 15 and 20 percent overnight.

55th ranked STEPN (GMT) has tumbled almost 25 percent in the past 24 hours.

88th ranked Anchor Protocol (ANC) has bucked the trend to rise more than 5 percent overnight.

The Fed has signaled the end of an easy monetary policy regime and the phased transition to a tighter framework. The whipsawing prices that markets have witnessed is a calibration to the massive change in the monetary policy stance.

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