Bitcoin breaks above $30,000 as investors eye end of rate rises (updated)

Fineqia International

11/04/2023 12:22

(Adds graphic, comments, details)
    By Rae Wee and Medha Singh
       April 11 (Reuters) - Major cryptocurrency bitcoin
breached the key $30,000 level for the first time in 10 months
on Tuesday, adding to its steady gains as investors raised bets
that the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon end its aggressive
monetary tightening campaign.
    Bitcoin  BTC=BTSP  peaked at $30,438 in Asian trade and was
last up 1.4% at $30,070. It has gained nearly 6% since the start
of the month, after rising 23% in March.
    Investors are awaiting a U.S. inflation report on Wednesday
to assess the Fed's next steps after banking sector turmoil in
March raised expectations that the central bank would let up on
rate hikes to ease stress on the sector.
    Boosting the case for rate hikes, however, Friday's
closely-watched U.S. nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report showed that
employers maintained a strong pace of hiring in March, pointing
to a still-resilient economy.    
    "There were some expectations of a potential miss on NFP on
Friday, and that's bolstered confidence coming into CPI," said
Joseph Edwards, investment adviser at Enigma Securities.   

    
    Crypto investment products attracted $57 million in inflows
last week - albeit on low volume - with most of the money
focused on bitcoin, digital asset manager CoinShares said on
Monday. This brings digital asset flows back into positive
territory for the year, the report showed.
    "The market has done a great job at culling all leveraged
participants in the past 18 months," said Matthew Dibb, chief
investment officer at Astronaut Capital, a Singapore-based
crypto asset manager.
    "If (bitcoin) can survive the week over $30,000, we are
going higher."
    Ether  ETH=BTSP , the second largest cryptocurrency, stood
near last week's roughly eight-month peak of $1,942.50. It was
last up 0.5% at $1,920.40.
    Crypto investors are eagerly anticipating a major revamp to
the Ethereum blockchain on Wednesday that is set to allow them
to gain access to more than $33 billion of ether currency.
    The software upgrade, dubbed Shapella, will let market
players redeem their "staked ether" - coins they have deposited
and locked up on the network over the past three years in return
for interest.
    While Shapella is not likely to directly drive sell pressure
on ether, there could be heightened volatility around the event,
Bank of America strategist Alkesh Shah said.

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 (Reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Medha Singh in
Bengaluru; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan, Jamie Freed and Devika
Syamnath)
 ((medha.singh@thomsonreuters.com; within U.S. +1646 223 8780,
outside U.S. +91 80 6749 1130))