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BITCOIN again poked above the US$70,000 level and flirted with a gain for a fifth straight session, reflecting greater confidence in global markets about the prospect of Federal Reserve interest-rate reductions this year.
The largest digital asset’s run of daily increases is the longest in three months, leaving the original cryptocurrency at US$70,530 as at 8.20 am on Wednesday (Jun 5) in Singapore, some 5 per cent shy of the record high US$73,798 set in mid-March.
Traders are pricing in a bigger chance of a Fed rate cut as soon as November in the wake of data signalling moderating US inflation and a softer jobs market. Some Treasury yields registered their largest two-day drops of the year, a loosening in financial conditions that may help speculative assets such as crypto.
“Crypto assets are responding positively to the decline in rates,” Tom Couture, digital-asset strategy vice-president at Fundstrat Global Advisors, said.
Top-five coins including Ether, BNB and Solana have climbed over the past 24 hours. Tokens beloved by the meme crowd, such as dogwifhat, are also up.
BNB stems from the ecosystem around Binance, the biggest crypto exchange, and is often viewed as an arbiter of sentiment towards the company.
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BNB changed hands at approximately US$695, above the previous all-time peak of nearly US$691 from 2021, CoinMarketCap data show. BNB’s more than 100 per cent rally this year indicates perceptions about Binance’s outlook have improved since November, when the exchange pleaded guilty to violations of US anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws and was hit with a landmark US$4.3 billion penalty.
Bitcoin in recent days struggled to hold climbs above US$70,000 but optimists are drawing succour from a stretch of inflows into dedicated US exchange-traded funds as well as moves in Washington towards a crypto regulatory framework.
A short-term, 30-day correlation between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq 100 Index of US technology stocks is around the highest since early 2023, suggesting that further gains in the equity gauge may be accompanied by a move higher in the crypto market leader.
Michael Novogratz, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Galaxy Digital, said on Bloomberg Television that a more positive US political environment for digital assets will likely help propel Bitcoin to a record US$100,000 or even higher by the end of the year.
Such sentiment is an indication of how memories of the bleak digital-asset bear market in 2022 and ensuing scandals, including the fraud that undid the giant FTX crypto exchange, have faded – at least for now. BLOOMBERG
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