CRYPTO NEWS TODAY – Latest Bitcoin News – BTC Rally Loses Steam Above $30K

CRYPTO NEWS TODAY – Latest Bitcoin News – BTC Rally Loses Steam Above $30K
Bitcoin has been making some moves lately, and it looks like the bullish trend might continue. In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin rose 1.33% to reach $30,256, with a weekly gain of 5.51%. On Tuesday, it broke through the $30,000 mark and hit $30,509 early on Wednesday, the highest price since June 2022. Investors are hoping that the U.S. CPI data released on Wednesday will lead the Fed to revise its monetary tightening policies, possibly signaling the end of rate hikes.

Meanwhile, Ethereum dipped 1.37% to $1,890, trading 1.23% lower for the week. The Shanghai hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, also known as the Shapella upgrade, is happening on Wednesday (Thursday morning in Hong Kong), and it includes an upgrade that allows investors to withdraw their staked Ether for the first time.

On the other hand, Solana has been on a roll, jumping 11.98% to $23.44 and adding 9.95% for the week. Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of Solana Labs, is releasing its first smartphone Saga on Thursday, which has integrated the Solana blockchain. Users can make on-chain transactions, manage digital assets, and access various decentralized apps.

In terms of the total crypto market capitalization, it rose 0.70% in the past 24 hours to $1.24 trillion, with the total trading volume up 5.10% to $43.63 billion.

Switching gears to the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the Forkast 500 NFT index rose 1.27% to 3992.14 in the 24 hours to 09:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, although it was still down 1.04% for the week. The index is a proxy measure of the performance of the global NFT market and includes 500 eligible smart contracts on any given day. It is managed by Forkast Labs data branch, CryptoSlam.

Moving on to U.S. equities, they closed mixed on Tuesday as investors waited for the U.S. March CPI on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.29%, the S&P 500 changed little, and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.43%. Analysts expect the U.S. CPI to have risen 5.1% by year-end in March, down from 6% in February but still well above the Fed’s goal of curbing inflation below 2%.

With the mixed information, analysts at the CME Group expect a 33.1% chance the Fed will not raise interest rates at its next meeting on May 3, while 66.9% predict a 25-basis-point rate hike, down from 71.3% on Tuesday. U.S. interest rates are currently between 4.75% to 5%, the highest since June 2006.

U.S. stock futures edged higher as of 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.06%, the S&P 500 futures edged up 0.05%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.06% higher.

That’s all for now! Keep an eye out for more exciting updates in the world of finance and cryptocurrency.