Markets
Bitcoin and broader market shaken ahead of US GDP report
Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market are choppy ahead of the release of final US gross domestic product data later today. The vast majority of assets in the top 100 coins by market capitalization are trading in the red.
Bitcoin has once again surpassed the $61,000 mark and is currently trading at $60,670 at the time of writing this article, according to CoinGecko.
Finalized U.S. gross domestic product data — the biggest indicator of whether the economy is growing or shrinking — is expected to show 1.3% growth. This number is important as it plays a key role in the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut rates. A strong GDP number would likely reinforce the Fed’s resolve to leave rates unchanged. On the other hand, a weak GDP number would likely accelerate the process of interest rate cuts.
Earlier this month, comments from the Federal Reserve indicated that the Fed will likely cut rates just once this year. This caused a sale off in cryptocurrency markets as investors are cautious about investing in risky assets in a high interest rate environment.
As June draws to a close, the month has not been kind to the leading cryptocurrency as BTC is down around 10% month-to-date. The Fed’s more aggressive stance than anticipated played a key role in this decline, but it was not the only factor.
On Monday, it was announced that Mt. Gox creditors will begin receiving refunds from beginning of July. This has spooked market participants as nearly $9 billion worth of Bitcoin will be distributed to investors who have not had access to such funds for over a decade.
Yesterday, the US government sent US$240 million BTC value for Coinbase Prime, the institutional arm of Coinbase.
In addition to the US government, German authorities have been aggressively selling the BTC they seized. In the last two weeks, German authorities have sold almost US$ 225 million value of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin isn’t the only major cryptocurrency to lose ground.
Ethereum, BNB and Solana are down at least 1% this morning. And of the top 100 coins by market cap on CoinGecko, one out of six coins has seen an increase of more than 2% in the last 24 hours.
Maker, Kaspa and Ethereum Name Service witnessed their price increase in 7%, 6.7% It is 4.3%respectively, while Injective, Flare and Aave had their prices increased by between 2.5% and 3.5%.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.