Bitcoin declined after setting a record high for the fifth time in seven days, dropping below US$70,000, with investors pulling back from riskier assets across financial markets.
The oldest cryptocurrency fell as much as 6.3% to US$68,549, after earlier climbing to an all-time high of US$73,797. Other tokens such as Ether, Avalanche and Litecoin also fell.
Treasury yields rose and US stocks fell after another hot inflation report reinforced bets the Federal Reserve will be in no rush to cut rates even as some areas of the economy show signs of sluggishness. Lower interest rates tend to raise the appeal of cryptocurrencies.
“Crypto markets have been a bit more correlated with US stock markets recently, especially tech” stocks, said Shiliang Tang, president of principal trading firm Arbelos Markets, adding that price performance of cryptocurrencies has been stronger during Asia trading hours.
Bitcoin Drops After Setting Record High
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Meanwhile, in the memecoins sector, the frenzy in some of the most speculative tokens continued. Dogwifhat logged a more than 20% gain in the past day, according to tracker CoinGecko. The total market value of memecoins has risen to more than US$60 billion, and data from blockchain data firm Kaiko shows that weekly trading volume of top memecoins reached nearly US$80 billion. The volume of trading is the highest since late 2021.
“There’s definitely a lot of renewed optimism and new entrants are finally starting to turn up in pockets like memecoins,” said Zaheer Ebtikar, founder of crypto fund Split Capital. “But there is generally still a looming air of uncertainty of how much longer prices can remain this high and how much leverage can exist in the market, especially for the riskiest of assets in memecoins.”
