In the midst of a rollercoaster week filled with debt limit deals, complicated job reports, and lawmakers grappling with cryptocurrency regulation, Bitcoin remains remarkably steady, recently trading at about $27,180, up 1.2%. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization only briefly surpassed $27,000 before the U.S. equity markets opened on Friday, after spending most of the previous two days below this threshold – a result largely attributed to inflationary concerns that have persistently plagued prices for the past 18 months.
Edward Moya, senior market analyst at foreign exchange market maker Oanda, pointed to recent discussions surrounding the Securities Clarity Act as a factor contributing to Bitcoin’s stability, suggesting that it may offer guidelines on whether certain tokens are classified as unregistered securities.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether, managed to regain some ground, recently trading just above $1,905, up nearly 2% from Thursday. For the past week, Ether largely languished below this level as investors dealt with similar macroeconomic challenges.
Interestingly, all major cryptocurrencies found themselves in positive territory, with the tokens of Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) smart contract platforms recently rising over 4% and 3.5%, respectively. Small DeFi-focused protocols, such as Lido (LDO), Synapse (SYN), and PancakeSwap (CAKE), outperformed others in the past week, climbing 15%, 13%, and 12%, respectively, as per the CoinDesk Market Index – a measure of overall crypto market performance.
On another note, stocks saw a significant boost after an impressive U.S. Labor Department report revealed the economy added 75% more jobs in May than economists had predicted. The strong data has unveiled a tight employment market, suggesting that economic expansion is far from over, and inflation remains a concern. However, the May unemployment rate of 3.7%, which was higher than the anticipated 3.5%, indicates the U.S. central bank may slow down their steady interest rate hikes.
Following the release of the robust job report, the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 surged 1.4% and 1%, respectively, while safe-haven gold dropped 1.5% to trade at $1,965. Oanda’s Moya believes that the U.S. central bank finds itself in a tough position for the June interest rate decision, considering the upcoming Institute for Supply Management (ISM) and May Consumer Price Index releases. He stated, “The Fed has almost locked themselves into a corner with a skip for the June meeting, but it should be very clear that they are not done raising rates.”
So, despite ongoing market fluctuations and uncertainty around regulatory efforts, Bitcoin’s resilience in the face of these headwinds remains noteworthy, and the question of long-term macroeconomic impacts on the cryptocurrency market still lingers.
Source: Coindesk
