WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Amidst anxiety ahead of the Fed's last meeting of the year 2024, cryptocurrencies recorded a modest decline, shedding close to 3 percent in the past 24 hours. The sell-off however came after market-leader Bitcoin touched a fresh all-time-high above $108 thousand.
The Federal Open Markets Committee is expected to announce its decision on interest rates at 2 PM ET on Wednesday. Going by The CME FedWatch tool that tracks the expectations of interest rate traders, there is a 95.4 percent probability of a 25-basis points rate cut by the Fed. From the peak level of 5.5 percent, the Fed had slashed rates by 50 basis points in September and 25 basis points in November.
The Committee would also reveal the economic projections spanning GDP, unemployment, inflation as well as interest rates for each year from 2024 to 2027 and over the longer run. In the projections made in September, the median GDP growth for 2024 was pegged at 2 percent. Unemployment was forecast at 4.4 percent whereas the PCE-based inflation was expected at 2.3 percent.
Even though the bullish momentum in crypto markets have of late been attributed to non-economic factors like prospect of a crypto-friendly government, likelihood of a strategic Bitcoin reserve etc., monetary policy also holds considerable sway over crypto market sentiment. A higher-than-expected level of interest rates increases the opportunity cost of holding cryptocurrencies and bodes ill for the digital assets that are typically non-interest bearing.
Overall crypto market capitalization is currently at $3.67 trillion, recording an overnight decline of more than 2.6 percent.
Despite Bitcoin's dip from the peak, Coinmarketcap's Crypto Fear and Greed Index, a barometer of the emotional state of the market is currently at 80 denoting 'Extreme Greed'. It was at 81 (Extreme Greed) a day earlier, at 73 (Greed) a week earlier and at 84 (Extreme Greed) a month earlier.
The CoinMarketCap 100 Index that measures the performance of the top 100 cryptocurrency projects (excluding stablecoins and asset-backed wrapper tokens) by CoinMarketCap ranking based on their market capitalization is currently at $226.67. The index has ranged between the yearly high of $234.54 recorded on December 17, 2024 and the yearly low of $89.94 recorded on January 23, 2024.
Meme category market capitalization has slipped 4.4 percent overnight to $113 billion implying a market share of 3.1 percent.
The AI & Big Data category recorded an overnight erosion of 6.3 percent, dragging market capitalization to $57.5 billion or 1.57 percent of the overall crypto market.
The DeFi Category recorded a decline of 4.4 percent in market capitalization on an overnight basis. Market cap is currently at $169 billion implying a market share of 4.6 percent.
Market capitalization of the not-so-volatile stablecoins increased 0.14 percent to $212.5 billion or 5.8 percent of the overall crypto market.
Bitcoin has slipped 2.5 percent overnight to trade at $104,594.13, around 3 percent below the all-time high of $108,268.45 recorded on December 17. BTC has however gained 6 percent in the past week, 17 percent over the past 30 days and more than 147 percent till date in 2024.
Data from Farside Investors showed inflows of $494 million to Bitcoin Spot ETF products in the U.S. on Tuesday. The funds had recorded inflows of $637 million on Monday.
Ethereum lost 3.8 percent in the past 24 hours to trade at $3,855.04, around 21 percent below the previous peak. Weekly gains are more than 3 percent whereas gains in 2024 are close to 69 percent. Ether traded between $4,022.94 and $3,804.92 in the past 24 hours.
Ether Spot ETF products in the U.S. saw inflows rising to $145 million on Tuesday from $51 million on Monday.
3rd ranked XRP (XRP) slipped 4.9 percent overnight but gained 6.7 percent in the past week to trade at $2.53. The cryptocurrency is currently trading around 34 percent below the all-time high.
5th ranked Solana (SOL) dropped 3.6 percent overnight, dragging weekly losses to 4.7 percent. SOL is currently trading at $215.85, around 18 percent below its record high.
6th ranked BNB (BNB) shed 1.2 percent overnight at its current trading price of $715.23. BNB is currently trading 10 percent below the all-time high.
7th ranked Dogecoin (DOGE) decreased 6.3 percent overnight and 5.4 percent in the past week to trade at $0.3838. DOGE is trading 48 percent below the previous peak.
9th ranked Cardano (ADA) lost 6.5 percent overnight to trade at $1.03. ADA is currently trading 67 percent below the record high till date.
10th ranked TRON (TRX) also declined 7.7 percent overnight to trade at $0.2718. TROX has slipped 2.4 percent in the past week. The trading price is 38 percent below the cryptocurrency's all-time high.
64th ranked Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), launched by the Pudgy Penguins NFT project topped overnight gains with a surge of 543 percent. The Solana-based meme coin's price had whipsawed between $0.04989 and $0.003375 on December 17, the date of airdrop. It is currently trading at $0.03215.
26th ranked Bitget Token (BGB), the utility token of Seychelles-based Bitget cryptocurrency exchange recorded overnight gains of more than 14 percent. BGB recorded an all-time high of $4.45 a few hours ago.
87th ranked dYdX (DYDX) topped overnight losses with a decline of 12.5 percent followed by 34th ranked VeChain (VET) that slipped 11.3 percent.
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