After touching the $50,000 mark on Tuesday, Bitcoin slipped marginally to $49,620 on Wednesday as hotter-than-expected US inflation raised concerns about further rate cuts. BTC declined as low as $48,325 overnight.
Consumer price index dropped to an annual rate of 3.1% in January, according to official data; above economists’ expectations of 2.9%. In December, the CPI stood at 3.4%.
At 12:17 pm, Bitcoin was trading 0.8% lower at $49,617, while Ethereum was down 0.12% at $2,645. The global cryptocurrency market cap declined 0.54% to around $1.86 trillion in the last 24 hours.
“Bitcoin fell below $49,000 after the release of stronger-than-expected US CPI data, dampening expectations of a rate cut. With US government bond yields and the rising dollar index, Bitcoin has faced selling pressure along with stocks and gold. However, the withdrawal may be short-lived,” said Sathvik Vishwanath, Co-Founder & CEO, Unocoin.
“Spot inflows into Bitcoin ETFs remain strong, suggesting sustainable demand despite macroeconomic uncertainties. Additionally, with the upcoming supply halving and the continued influx of spot ETFs, bullish sentiment remains,” Sathvik said.Shivam Thakral, CEO of BuyUcoin, said, “The crypto market experienced a slight correction as Bitcoin made a pullback to the $49000 level. The next few days could see a decrease in Bitcoin dominance and the start of a bullish trend for Ethereum and Altcoins. At the same time, the Bitcoin ETF inflows have continued to increase making the demand for Bitcoin 10x more than the supply coming from miners. We may witness a continuation of the bullish trend until the halving in April this year.”In today’s trade, altcoins including Solana, Cardano, Avalanche, Chainlink, Dogecoin, Polygon, Toncoin, and Shiba Inu declined, while BNB, Tron, Polkadot, and Internet Computer surged.The total volume in DeFi is currently $5.6 billion, 7.6% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. The volume of all stablecoins is now $67.55 billion, which is 91.43% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume, as per data available on CoinMarketCap.
In the last 24 hours, the market cap of Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, fell to $975 billion. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently 52.32%, according to CoinMarketCap. BTC volume in the last 24 hours declined 12% to $33.94 billion.
“Technically, BTC saw a daily bearish candle close after eight consecutive days of green candle closes. While this isn’t necessarily a sign of reversal yet, BTC needs to maintain its position above $49,000 and clear the $51,850 level,” said CoinDCX Research Team.
On the other hand, ETH/BTC bounced back from its support level, suggesting that we may see ETH outperforming BTC for the next few days, it said.