Memecoins
This Week in Coins: Bitcoin Beaten But Rebounds as Meme Coin Mania Persists
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
It was a difficult week for Bitcoin– and the broader crypto market – but as of yesterday, things looked brighter.
THE Bitcoin price is now at $63,107. That’s effectively where it was seven days ago, down just a fraction of a percent, according to CoinGecko data. This is an improvement from trading below $57,000 per coin earlier in the week.
Bitcoin’s mid-week plunge was exacerbated by Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). post their worst day ever Wednesday. And it was after a bad week last week too.
Even BlackRock’s popular iShares Bitcoin Trust saw capital outflows for the first time since its launch in January, putting downward pressure on the price of Bitcoin.
The selloff occurred as investors were spooked by news that the Federal Reserve was in no rush to cut interest rates. On Wednesday, the president of the central bank confirmed this, saying that there would be no further increase even if inflation proved persistent. The Fed has decided to keep its key rate stable.
But it wasn’t all bad news: On Friday, the U.S. government’s nonfarm payrolls report was released. watch that the unemployment rate in April was higher than expected, which caused the price of Bitcoin to rise.
When unemployment is high, the Federal Reserve is more likely to cut interest rates. Low unemployment generally means people are spending more, leading to higher prices, or inflation. A fall in inflation could lead to lower interest rates, whetting investors’ appetite for risky assets like crypto.
The employment figures may have been this brought BTC out of its trough. Investors betting against the leading cryptocurrency saw their short positions liquidated to the tune of $100 million yesterday.
Elsewhere, even pieces continued their racewith based on Ethereum PEPE make big gains and Solana-base BONK have a good week too. Despite seven eventful days, they are up more than 20% and 15%.
Other alts, like ordinal-based COMPUTER And Toncoinstarted a gathering Friday. ORDI is now priced at $41, a 10% jump over 24 hours, and Toncoin at $5 is up 9%.
Perhaps more newsworthy – certainly more shocking – was the moment when a young boy and his mother put on a sordid show live to pump a meme token based on Solana LIVEMOM at a market capitalization of $300,000 before disappearing in what looks like a classic scam.
Even after the duo’s demise, the coin’s market capitalization exceeded $500,000. Never a dull moment in the crypto world.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.