Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency with the highest market value, has dropped below $27,000 for the second consecutive day, but remained within its weeks-long range. Despite the mildly upbeat jobs and price data this month, investors are waiting for a true price catalyst before making any significant moves. The price of bitcoin has been hovering between $25,000 and $30,000 throughout spring, and many analysts think it will continue to linger at this level without a convincing reason to push it higher or lower, media reports said.
A number of factors specific to the digital purchase space have contributed to its recent price movement, as investors shrugged off the banking crisis and positive macro data. Ethereum, the second-largest crypto by capitalization, has also remained mostly range-bound in current weeks, despite the flourishing Ethereum Shanghai upgrade in early April. Katie Talati, head of research at blockchain asset management firm Arca, said that the recent dip is part of bitcoin’s growing pains, as the scalability of the bitcoin network and liquidity pose challenges. In the meantime, investors are eagerly waiting for the outcome of the Federal Reserve Meeting at 2 p.m. ET.
In other news, the Pepecoin-inspired meme craze is losing momentum just after a week hitting an impressive market cap of $1.8B. Nansen, a crypto brilliance firm, reports that “smart money” named wallets reduced their PEPE holdings by $3M in the last 24 hours. According to Talati, the crew behind PEPE did an exceptional job of selling the token and creating a lot of excitement around it. However, she adds that these types of tokens often gain fame when there is not much happening in the crypto space, and they tend to be the most attainable to new traders.
Despite PacWest Bancorp’s announcement of a more than 9% deposit loss last week, crypto investors appear unfazed by the latest issues in the banking sector. Arca’s Talati remains hopeful about DeFi, citing significant activity and development on projects such as Curve and Aave, which are launching their stable coins. At 7 a.m. ET (11 a.m. UTC), other major cryptocurrencies were mostly down, with the CoinDesk Market Index, a measurement of the performance of crypto market, falling 2.4%.
