Bitcoin reversed a 4% loss to regain the $57,000 mark, with Ether surpassing $3,000.
The market is shifting focus from Mt. Gox's repayments to U.S. Federal Reserve policies, with traders eyeing economic data releases and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's testimony later this week.
Bitcoin reversed a 4% loss from the Asian trading session to regain the $57,000 mark in European morning hours Monday as some majors rose as much as 3%.
Ether {{ET}} jumped back over $3,000 after losing the level on Friday, while Cardano’s {{ADA}} led gains with a 3.3% rise over the past 24 hours. Solana’s SOL, BNB Chain’s BNB and dogecoin (DOGE) were up at least 1%.
Celestia’s TIA led gains among tokens with a market capitalization between $1 billion and $5 billion, jumping 15% ahead of its flagship Modular Summit conference scheduled for Thursday.
The broad-based CoinDesk 20, an index of the largest tokens, edged higher, reversing a 7% loss from earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, BTC traders are back to tracking U.S. Federal Reserve speeches and policies as the market has largely priced in the impact of defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox’s repayments.
BTC saw one of its steepest falls last week as prices fell more than 8% in the span of a few hours on Friday, falling to as low as $53,600 shortly after Mt. Gox started moving millions worth of the token to the Japan-based bitBank exchange. The exchange’s trading desk, however, told CoinDesk in a Monday email that they expect lesser market impact from Mt. Gox’s wallet movements ahead.
“Bitcoin was already fluctuating around $54,000 by the time Mt.Gox’s trustee officially announced that they had commenced repayment,” Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at bitBank, said. “The price bounced back after the announcement and briefly recovered $58,000 during the weekend.”
“The market had overly priced in the repayment before it actually started, and later reacted to the (U.S.) jobs report on Friday, which was announced after the beginning of Mt.Gox’s repayment," Hasegawa added. "This suggests that the market’s concern for Mt.Gox’s repayment is starting to wane and their focus is shifting back to the Fed’s policy decisions."
The latest U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) report is scheduled for Thursday. In addition, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will testify to Congress Tuesday and Wednesday, possibly providing clues as to whether the central bank intends to ease monetary policy in coming months.
That aside, some market observers expect dim price action to continue, citing the summer holiday months.
“It’s a case of more summer blues for investors,” shared Philippe Bekhazi, CEO and co-founder of digital asset services firm XBTO, in an email. “The bottom line is sellers are more motivated than buyers right now. Lots of people are on holiday, many small miners are shutting down and long-term holders are trimming their positions.”
“However, the key thing here is that this pattern is not really any different to what we normally see following the months after a bitcoin halving event,” continued Bekhazi, referring to the seasonality commonly observed in bitcoin market cycles.