Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
-
Bitcoin continues to trade above the $29k level, while Ether is now trading at $1,917 per coin.
-
The market has steadied ahead of next week’s FOMC meeting.
Investors Eye Next Week’s FOMC Meeting
Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency by market cap, has maintained its price above the $29k level over the past 24 hours.
The leading cryptocurrency topped $30k at one point on Thursday but has now retraced and is trading around $29,400 per coin. The rally came after fears earlier this week that Mt. Gox and the United States government were about to dump more bitcoins into the market.
Ether is one of the best performers amongst the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. It is up by more than 1% in the last 24 hours and is finally trading above $1,900 again after the poor performance recorded in the last few days.
The market’s positive performance comes as tech giants Microsoft, Google, and Meta recorded strong earnings in the first quarter of the year. The positive performance from the tech stocks and the struggles of regional bank First Republic combined to boost the crypto market.
Investors are now focusing their attention on next week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate decision. Market experts expect the FOMC to increase interest rates by 25 basis points.
However, market analysts believe that the United States Federal Reserve is close to ending this type of monetary hawkishness but still has one or two more rate hikes in store.
