Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Bitcoin (BTC) has crossed the $30,000 mark for the first time since early 2022 as investors weigh that the US Federal Reserve will soon end its aggressive monetary tightening campaign.
The world’s most-valued cryptocurrency token hit the 10-month peak as it hit $30,101.14 after it gained 6.2 per cent in the last 24 hours, rising 7.2 per cent in the last seven days, according to data from Coinmarketcap.
This is particularly welcoming as the market eased jitters following last month’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and others.
These events raised market expectations that the US central bank is unlikely to lift interest rates much higher for longer as it looks to ease the stress on the sector.
At the last meeting in March, the US central bank announced that its benchmark interest rate would rise another quarter of a percentage point to a range of 4.75 per cent to 5 per cent– its ninth consecutive rate rise and the highest rate since 2007.
Prior to that, a year ago, interest rates were close to zero.
The latest increase was smaller than the half-point increase that some had expected before the series of bank collapses that shook global markets.
Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency, stood at $1,917.72, a 3.0 per cent rise after touching $2,000 briefly last week.
Now, Crypto investors are eagerly anticipating a major revamp to the Ethereum blockchain this week that is set to allow them to gain access to more than $33 billion of ETH currency.
Known as Shapella, the software upgrade will let market players redeem their staked ETH coins deposited and locked up on the network over the past three years in return for interest.
