Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Trade Lower As Fed's Jerome Powell Sings Hawkish Tune, Analyst Says King Crypto 'Wants To Continue Rallying'

Major cryptocurrencies were seen trading lower on Wednesday evening amid hawkish comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

What Happened: Powell signaled the possibility that the U.S. central bank could carry out multiple interest rate hikes in the near future at an aggressive pace.

The Fed Chair said that the driving force behind these rate hikes is a robust labor market. Powell's comments align with positions taken by his colleagues at the June policy meeting.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin briefly fell below the $30,000 mark, before regaining the psychologically important level.

During the recent market pullback, Bitcoin surpassed Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies, reaching its highest level of dominance in 26 months on Wednesday.

The apex coin has remained largely flat in recent days as investors await the decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission on a slew of exchange-traded fund applications filed by the likes of BlackRock.

At the time of writing, the global crypto market capitalization was noted at $1.16 trillion, a decline of almost 2% over the last day.

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Analyst Notes: OANDA Senior Market Analyst Craig Erlam noted that Bitcoin has hovered between $30,000 and $31,000 levels in the recent days after surging on the "back of encouraging ETF filings."

"The SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase have not been forgotten but they’ve certainly drifted into the background and been overtaken by far more promising news flow."

On the performance of Bitcoin in 2023, Erlam noted, "It’s obviously been a fantastic year for bitcoin so far but the sell-off since mid-April was another reminder that it doesn’t come without major setbacks."

Bitcoin has surged 81.7% so far in 2023, beating the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum in terms of year-to-date returns. ETH has returned 53% in the same period.

Cryptocurrency trader Michael Van De Poppe said on Twitter that the Bitcoin dominance chart indicates that king crypto "wants to continue rallying." However, he said that the September 2019 test of the 200-week moving average and Exponential Moving Average resulted into resistance. 

The Amsterdam-based trader said that this was 10 months prior to the Bitcoin halving and that's exactly the same now.

On the broader markets, Van De Poppe said that there were looking "quite decent" for upwards continuation.

"It’s just a matter of time until [Altcoins] pick up their game. Slowly accumulate them, and then hold for 1-2 years and you’ll be fine."

Market intelligence platform Santiment said that as Bitcoin drifts between $29,000 and $31,000 levels, altcoins are showing signs of "profit redistribution" from the apex coin's pump.

"With [ETFs] creating more trader exposure, trader optimism is beginning to emerge. "

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