BTC briefly touched above $111,500 as traders bet on a Fed rate cut next week.
Crypto markets saw a moderate recovery on Friday (October 24) after new US economic data showed annual inflation hit 3% for the first time since January, strengthening bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week.
Bitcoin (BTC) climbed 2% to briefly reach over $111,500 before retracing slightly, while the total crypto market cap rose 1.5% to $3.85 trillion, according to CoinGecko.
Ethereum (ETH) rose 2.6% over the past 24 hours to $3,973, while BNB (BNB) gained 2.8% to $1,117, trading mostly sideways after a sharp rise yesterday following the announcement of the US presidential pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
XRP (XRP) rallied even more than 4% to $2.50, extending its weekly gains to almost 10%.
Meanwhile, Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGE) are both up just over 1% on the day.
Most of the remaining top 100 crypto assets by market capitalization are up 1-3% over the past 24 hours, recovering some of their recent losses as markets grapple with geopolitical uncertainty and trade war fears.
Analysts at Glassnode noted in an article on Friday that Bitcoin’s unrealized relative loss – which measures the US dollar loss of all coins currently underwater – remains below 5%, a sign of the continued strength of the bull market.
“The current bull market has maintained this structure since November 2023, making it more persistent than the equivalent phases of the last two cycles,” they said.
Major movers and liquidations
Among the top 100 assets, ChainOpera AI (COAI) and Zcash (ZEC) are once again the biggest gainers, up 21% and 14% respectively.
Meanwhile, today’s biggest losers are TRON (TRX) and MemeCore (M), down 3.2% and 2.4%, respectively.
Data from Coinglass shows that $246 million in leveraged positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, including $153.5 million in short positions and $92.6 million in long positions. Ethereum accounted for $72.3 million of that total, followed by Bitcoin with $61.3 million and altcoins with $19.5 million.
ETFs and macro conditions
On Thursday, October 23, Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $20.33 million in net inflows, while Spot Ethereum ETFs saw $127.5 million in outflows, according to SoSoValue. Glassnode analysts pointed out in a separate article that Bitcoin ETF outflows have often coincided with local market lows.
“When flows stabilize or turn positive, they historically align with renewed demand and early stages of trend recovery,” Glassnode added.
On the macro side, the first US economic report since the government shutdown was released today, September Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. According to the report, the annual rate of inflation in the United States reached 3%, the highest so far this year, but a slower increase than expected from 2.9% in August.
Month over month, prices rose 0.3%, just below the 0.4% predicted by economists.
Without food or energy, prices increased by 0.2% over the month and 3% over the year, slightly below expectations.
Bitfinex analysts noted in a commentary shared with The Defiant that liquidity remains “patchy as banks tap the Fed’s repo facility and short-term funding markets exhibit mild stress that could amplify post-CPI volatility.”
Nic Puckrin, crypto analyst and co-founder of The Coin Bureau, said in a comment to The Defiant that the report was the “most impactful” of the year, given that no other government economic reports have been released since the shutdown. He added:
“As we approach the weekend and liquidity diminishes, we could see a steeper rise as investors continue to shift from gold to Bitcoin, provided there is no negative news later today or over the weekend. If Bitcoin manages to reach a resistance level of $116,500, this will pave the way for a new all-time high.”
