The cryptocurrency sector experienced minimal movement today, as a brief rally prompted by encouraging U.S. inflation data quickly lost momentum.
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $82,800, reflecting a slight decrease of 0.5% in the past 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 index, which tracks the top 20 cryptocurrencies while excluding exchange coins, stablecoins, and memecoins, has seen a decline of 0.8% during the same timeframe.
Among the various cryptocurrencies, ether (ETH) stands out as the weakest performer in the index, currently dropping by 3.5% to approximately $1,880. The ETH/BTC ratio has now settled at 0.022, marking a return to levels not seen since April 2020, just before the DeFi summer ushered in projects like Uniswap and MakerDao. Since its all-time high in November 2021, the ETH/BTC ratio has plummeted by an astonishing 67%.
For more details, refer to this article: Inflation Relief as U.S. CPI Dips to Less Than Forecast 2.8% in February.
Dr. Youwei Yang, Chief Economist at BIT Mining, shared insights with CoinDesk via email regarding the market’s tepid response: “Today’s lower-than-expected CPI should be bullish, signaling faster rate cuts, but crypto hasn’t reacted strongly. Weeks of market fear require more than a single good print to regain confidence.”
Yang further highlighted potential systemic issues: “The real issue is Trump’s aggressive tariffs, which risk making inflation stickier while also crashing markets. This puts the Fed in a bind: High inflation from tariffs makes rate cuts harder. Market crashes and job losses pressure the Fed to cut rates sooner. Cutting too early could reignite inflation, making future policy tougher.”
According to current expectations, the market anticipates that the Federal Reserve may resume rate cuts as early as May or June, with projections suggesting reductions of up to 100 basis points by October.
On a related note, U.S. stocks saw a modest recovery on Wednesday following a decline of nearly 10% over recent weeks. The Nasdaq closed with a 1.2% uptick, while the S&P 500 marked a gain of 0.5%.
