The FOMC meeting and the subsequent Kevin Warsh press conference brought some volatility to the crypto market, with BTC sliding by over two grand from top to bottom before it found support.
Most altcoins have mimicked BTC’s performance in the past 24 hours, with ETH sliding beneath $1,750 and XRP dropping below a key support level at $1.20.
BTC’s Volatile Ride
During the previous weekend, US President Donald Trump promised a deal with Iran to be announced on Sunday. Although there were new attacks in the Middle East, mostly from the US’s ally, Israel, the POTUS indeed outlined such a deal with Iran on Sunday evening, which sent the entire crypto market flying.
Bitcoin stood below $64,000 at the time, before it shot up to $66,000 in minutes and up to $67,200 on the following day. However, it couldn’t maintain its run and dipped toward $66,000. It tried another breakout, which was stopped at $67,000 again on Tuesday, and then all financial eyes turned to the first FOMC meeting with Kevin Warsh at the helm of the US Federal Reserve, which took place yesterday evening.
In line with expectations, the Fed kept the interest rates unchanged. However, Warsh’s speech after the conclusion of the meeting suggested that the hopes for an ‘easy money’ Chairman would not come to fruition.
Bitcoin dropped again, this time to $63,600 earlier this morning, leaving over $400 million in liquidations. Despite recovering to over $64,000 now, BTC is still 1% down on the day. Its market cap has declined to $1.290 trillion, while its dominance over the alts struggles to remain above 56% on CG.
BTCUSD June 18. Source: TradingView
XLM Rockets, XRP Slips
Ethereum is down by just over 1% in the past day once again, sliding below $1,750. BNB has lost the $600 support level. XRP is below a key line of its own, dumping to well under $1.20 after a 1.6% decline. Popular analysts have warned recently that if the token gets rejected at $1.20-$1.21, it could lead to another dip toward $1.00.
ZEC has dumped by 7% daily, while UNI and DEXE have lost the most value. Both assets have plunged by 11%-12%. In contrast, XLM has defied the overall trend with a 10% surge that pushed it to $0.24.
The total crypto market cap has dipped below $2.3 trillion after another $25 billion decline in 24 hours.
Cryptocurrency Market Overview June 18. Source: QuantifyCrypto
