Bitcoin (BTC) stayed below $25,000 on June 15 after a snap reaction to United States economic policy changes saw three-month lows.
Hawkish Powell “all bark, no bite”
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked BTC/USD as it consolidated after the prior day’s losses totaled over 3%.
The U.S. Federal Reserve had delivered an expected pause in interest rate hikes — its first since 2021 — while keeping the mood hawkish. Fed chair Jerome Powell suggested that fresh hikes may be necessary in the future to tame inflation.
“As I noted earlier, nearly all committee participants expect that it will be appropriate to raise interest rates somewhat further by the end of the year,” he said at a press conference, referencing the views of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
“But at this meeting, considering how far and how fast we have moved, we judged it prudent to hold the target range steady to allow the committee to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy.”
Markets thus placed more than a 70% chance of a hike at the next FOMC meeting in July, as per data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool on the day.
The mixed signals added additional downward pressure to already fragile crypto price performance.
However, not everyone was downbeat about the outlook. Analyzing the Fed event, Keith Alan, a co-founder of monitoring resource Material Indicators, described Powell as “all bark, no bite.”
“He telegraphed super hawkish to tame markets, but executed a super dovish pause,” he told Twitter followers.
“Pick your targets.”
An accompanying chart showed major support zones for BTC/USD that have formed since 2018.
More BTC price volatility to come
Continuing, other analyses argued that the situation for BTC price action might get more interesting.
Related: US Bitcoin supply fell over 10% in the past year — Glassnode
Trading suite DecenTrader noted Bitcoin was approaching an area of leveraged long liquidity.
#Bitcoin is slowly getting closer the the 3x Long Liquidity.
Starts at $23,100. https://t.co/PWkS078rnF pic.twitter.com/b0iPBloAsB
— Decentrader (@decentrader) June 15, 2023
“Again: volatility is incoming,” Maartunn, a contributor at on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, emphasized on the day.
“While the price of bitcoin is going sideways, open interest has increased by 439 million dollars. Different from previous occasions, Funding Rates are trending down, close to neutral. Suggestion longs and shorts are in (almost) in balance).”
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