After a Nikkei report that the Bank of Japan was mulling a change to its yield curve control policy, Bitcoin ticked down slightly on Friday morning in Asia. However, it quickly recovered lost ground to trade at $29,210, off about 0.15% over the past four hours and down 1% from Thursday, same time. This resilience to macroeconomic events that previously weighed on cryptos is a recent trend.
Ether has been following a similar path and was recently changing hands at $1,856, a 0.6% drop-off during the past four hours and down 1% from the previous day, same time. Umee’s CEO and co-founder, Brent Xu, commented that the current stasis amid rising rates is a sign of strength, but also expects a continuation of the range-bound pattern for a prolonged period of time.
Other major cryptos by market cap were in negative territory. DOGE and MATIC, the token of smart contracts platform Polygon, were recently off 2% and 2.2%, respectively. Stellar Lumens’ XLM token, which rose by double-digits the previous day, was up a more modest 1.8%.
The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of crypto markets performance, was recently down 0.5%. Major U.S. equity indexes also declined, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 off 0.5% and 0.6%.
Xu noted that trading volumes are “relatively low” and retail investors are not flocking to the space. He does not expect a dramatic rally until next year’s halving, which could coincide with rate cuts. “Cuts could if there’s some breakage that takes place, such as a credit crunch or acceleration of the banking crisis.”