Crypto wrap: Market trading sideways on Fed rate hike, Twitter rebranding

Earlier this week, US Fed hiked its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, taking it to the highest in 22 years

The cryptocurrency market traded sideways last week owing to comments made by US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairperson Gary Gensler, a rate hike by the US Federal Reserve, and the rebranding of Twitter to "X".

According to CoinMarketCap, in the last seven days, Bitcoin was down 2 per cent and was trading at $29,207 on Friday. Ethereum, the second-largest digital token by market cap, was down 1.19 per cent and was trading at $1,866. The total market cap was down from $1.19 trillion to $1.17 trillion.

Gensler earlier this week said that the crypto sector remains "speculative" and "rife with fraud", in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Later, US Fed hiked its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, taking it to the highest in 22 years.

Twitter's rebranding to "X" led to a surge in Dogecoin. As of Friday, it was up 6.5 per cent in the last week and was trading at $0.07669.

"Bitcoin continues to stay within a narrow range between $29,000 and $31,500 for over a month with over 3.4 million Bitcoin addresses buying the dip below $30,000," said the research team of crypto exchange CoinDCX.

"Bitcoin surpassed the $29,500 level yesterday but is now consolidating at approximately $29,200. This drop could be due to the news of the Bank of Japan contemplating changes to its yield curve control policy to manage real-time interest rates," added Edul Patel, co-founder and chief executive officer at Mudrex.

According to Parth Chaturvedi, investments lead, CoinSwitch Ventures, the positive development during the week was the US House Financial Services Committee voting in favour of Crypto and Blockchain Bills, marking the first time crypto-specific bills were advanced on their own merits and not as part of broader legislation.

"If Bitcoin fails to break through the $29,300 resistance, a continued downward movement is possible," Patel added.