Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Trade Higher: Are Cryptos About To Shrug Off Fed's Expected Rate Hike?

Bitcoin continues to face resistance at the $40,000 mark and failed to cross the level over the weekend. At press time, on Sunday evening, the apex coin traded higher over 24 hours as the global cryptocurrency market cap rose 3.2% to $1.75 trillion.​​

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Why It Matters: Cryptocurrencies remain under pressure, along with tech stocks, as the market braces itself for upcoming monetary policy action from the U.S. Federal Reserve. 

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is set to begin a meeting on Tuesday.

“Bitcoin’s fundamentals are starting to weaken as crypto retail and institutional interest is waning. Now that the $40,000 level seems like solid resistance for Bitcoin, crypto traders are anticipating a consolidation that could send prices towards the $37,500 level,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst with OANDA, in a note.

In intraday trading preceding Sunday evening, Bitcoin touched the $37,585.79 mark. 

However, investor sentiment seems to be improving. Alternative.me’s “Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index” indicated “Fear” at press time. The index was showing “Extreme Fear” last week.

Cryptocurrency analyst Michaël van de Poppe said the Federal Reserve rate hike is “already getting priced in or maybe priced in, at this point.”

“The majority is expecting the markets to nuke in the coming week due to the FED meeting and additional hikes,” he said on Twitter. 

Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft said on Twitter Sunday that Ethereum users paid a median fee of $4,830 transactions in a single hour. Kraft noted that miners made $87.66 million within that window.

At press time, the average transaction fee on Ethereum stood at $0.072 ETH or $204.40, according to BitInfoCharts.

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