Prices of the world’s oldest and the most famous cryptocurrency, bitcoin, slipped below $50,000 level on Thursday, as investors paused ahead of the US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s expected comments on the bond yield scenario.
A Reuters report said that Powell is set to speak at 1705 GMT before a virtual Wall Street Journal Jobs Summit and his remarks will be watched for any clues to a possible change in Fed language ahead of the March 16-17 policy meeting.
According to experts, with major institutions such as Tesla and MicroStrategy buying bitcoin, developments in the financial world such as bond yield rising and falling stock markets have started to impact the digital-verse in a big way.
At 6.20pm IST, bitcoin was trading at $49,485, up 6.2% after trading in a wide range of $48,635.28-52,639.20 over the past 24 hours, as per CoinGecko.
Bitcoin had hit its all-time high of $58,640 on February 21, but as the rally looked stretched, prices slipped to a low of $43,343 last week, representing more than a 25% correction. Over the last days, it had pared more than half of the recent losses.
“Many interesting things happened in the crypto ecosystem this week. BTC rebounded above the $50,000 zone with more bitcoin whales and institutions accumulating BTC rather than booking profits on their positions. MicroStrategy also announced purchasing additional 328 bitcoins for $15 million in cash. As of today, they hold approximately 90,859 Bitcoins. Moreover, Citigroup went from calling bitcoin a “wannabe asset” in 2014 to calling it the “North Star” asset at a tipping point in its latest report,” said Nischal Shetty, CEO,WazirX.
Meanwhile, other major cryptocurrencies such as ether and ripple were also trading in the red.
