Bitcoin and Ethereum ended two-day rallies as both coins fell slightly, although prices held at crucial support levels following indications the US Federal Reserve will soon slow down the pace of interest rate rises.
Bitcoin, the largest coin by market cap, fell 1.5% to US$16,443. It has remained above US$16,000 for the best part of the week, aside from falling below it very briefly on Tuesday.
Ethereum declined by 2.2% to US$1,183 but held firm above US$1,100, again apart from very briefly falling below the key support level on Tuesday.
Although the markets were jittery following the collapse of exchange FTX, signals from the Fed that it will slow down interest rate hikes seem to have applied some short-term stability to the volatile crypto markets.
Minutes from an early November meeting between Fed officials revealed it could be one step closer to slowing the pace of rate increases.
Prices may be stable now, although the future for crypto is anyone’s guess.
Some analysts have suggested that tighter regulation would come out of FTX’s collapse to ensure events which have rocked the crypto industry this year, like Terra Luna losing all its value, do not happen again.
However, crypto’s selling point, at least at one stage, was its lack of regulation, meaning it was unaffected by interest rate decisions, for example, making it ‘digital gold,’ although the more intertwined it has become with equities, the more impacted it is by decisions in those markets.
Among some of the altcoins, XRP jumped 8.5% to US$0.41, Polkadot fell 3.1% to US$5.30 and Litecoin fell 2.7% to US$75.29.
