Apr 11 (Portal) – Major cryptocurrency bitcoin broke through the key $30,000 level for the first time in 10 months on Tuesday, contributing to its steady gains as investors bet that the US Federal Reserve will soon end its aggressive monetary tightening campaign becomes.
Bitcoin peaked at $30,438 in Asian trading and was last up 1.4% to $30,070. It is up almost 6% since the beginning of the month after rising 23% in March.
Investors are awaiting a US inflation report on Wednesday to gauge the Fed’s next steps, after March’s banking sector turmoil raised expectations that the central bank would refrain from raising interest rates to ease the strain on the sector.
But the case for rate hikes bolstered Friday’s closely-watched U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) report, which showed employers maintained a strong pace of hiring in March, indicating an always-on trend still suggesting resilient economy.
“There were some expectations of a potential failure on NFP on Friday and that is boosting confidence in CPI,” said Joseph Edwards, investment advisor at Enigma Securities.
Bitcoin and gold have outperformed the S&P 500 since the banking turmoil
Crypto investment products attracted $57 million in inflows last week — albeit by small volumes — with most of the money centered on bitcoin, digital asset manager CoinShares said Monday. This brings digital asset inflows back into positive territory for the year, the report showed.
“The market has done a great job over the last 18 months weeding out all leveraged participants,” said Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at Astronaut Capital, a Singapore-based crypto asset manager.
“If (Bitcoin) can survive the week above $30,000, we will go higher.”
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was near last week’s roughly eight-month high of $1,942.50. It was last up 0.5% to $1,920.40.
Crypto investors are eagerly awaiting a major overhaul of the Ethereum blockchain on Wednesday, which should give them access to more than $33 billion in ethereal currency.
Dubbed Shapella, the software upgrade allows market participants to redeem their “staked ether” coins that they have deposited and locked on the network for the past three years for interest.
While Shapella is unlikely to be direct selling pressure on Ether, there could be increased volatility surrounding the event, said Bank of America strategist Alkesh Shah.
Reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Edited by Vidya Ranganathan, Jamie Freed and Devika Syamnath
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