Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
The markets are finishing the week on a positive note, after a turbulent week of ups and downs. According to CoinGecko, the price of Bitcoin has risen by 3% in the past seven days, reaching $43,139.
All eyes were on Bitcoin before, during, and after the Federal Reserve’s announcement on interest rates on Wednesday. Despite traders already expecting interest rates to remain unchanged, Bitcoin initially remained steady while other cryptocurrencies experienced dips. However, following a more hawkish press conference by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the price of Bitcoin dropped slightly as the central bank showed no urgency to lower interest rates. This also led to a decline in stock prices.
At one point, Bitcoin was trading as low as $42,000 per coin. However, the markets received a boost yesterday as strong economic data was released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report showed that the U.S. added 353,000 new jobs in January and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7% for the third consecutive month. This news had a positive impact on both the stock market and the crypto market, with prices rising on Friday morning.
While Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, experienced losses earlier in the week, it has since made a modest 2% gain and is currently trading at $2,306.
On the other hand, Solana (SOL) has been a top performer this week, with its price increasing by over 10%. It is now trading at $97.86 and this surge can be attributed to increased activity on the network following the launch of its decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator Jupiter’s JUP token airdrop.
The entire crypto industry’s market cap currently stands at $1.74 trillion, with a 2% increase in the past day, as per CoinGecko.
In summary, the markets have shown resilience amidst the week’s events and are ending on a positive note.
