Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is set to drop 8% on a weekly basis, as it fell further from the $70K mark, likely signaling a general cautious behavior with the halving slated to take place next month.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, regained some ground on Wednesday, a day after it suffered its biggest intra-day drop since the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.

On Tuesday, Bitcoin (BTC-USD) dropped more than 8% to below $62K.

Founder and CEO of Metalpha, a digital asset-based wealth management company, Adrian Wang, attributed the recent pullback in prices as a reflection of a more realistic market sentiment on the bull market.

The continued rebound of BTC prices on Thursday also coincided with the stock market rally, which came a day after the Federal Reserve maintained its expectations of three interest-rate cuts this year, despite reports of hotter-than-expected inflation.

“As the Bitcoin ETF outflows continue and lower expectations on interest cuts, global investors are cautious about further price adjustments, and using crypto derivatives is one of the best ways to take advantage of market volatility rather than directional bets,” said Wang.

SA analyst, Richard Durant, said general sentiment towards risk-on assets, especially investor optimism over the potential of AI, is supportive of Bitcoin (BTC-USD) at the moment.

“If monetary policy remains tight, this could eventually weigh on the current bull market though. This makes interest rates and the labor market important to Bitcoin’s forward path,” added Durant.

Notable News

• The New York State Department of Financial Services has granted WisdomTree (WT) a charter that will allow the company to form a new entity, WisdomTree Digital Trust Company LLC, to perform fiduciary custody of digital assets.
• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to categorize ether (ETH-USD) as a security, according to a Wednesday media report, a decision that could significantly impact the Ethereum blockchain and the wider cryptocurrency market.
• J.P. Morgan upgraded Riot Platforms (RIOT) stock to Overweight from Neutral on Wednesday as the Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is set to more than double its mining capacity by the end of the year.
• MicroStrategy (MSTR) has acquired 9,245 more bitcoins (BTC-USD) for $623M, bringing the software firm’s total stash to some 214,246 tokens, it disclosed on Tuesday in an SEC filing.

Bitcoin, Ether prices

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was down 2.26% to $63.7K as at 3:04 pm on Friday, erasing nearly all its gains recorded mostly on Wednesday, when BTC bounced to about $68K, and Ether (ETH-USD) fell ~2.63% to $3.3K.