Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Decline Ahead Of Friday's Jobs Report—Analyst Predicts King Crypto Could Surge Over 278% To $256K

Major cryptocurrency experienced a decline on Wednesday, with the price of  BTC staying below $67,000 during U.S. trading hours.

What Happened: The decline in price action comes after Bitcoin saw two minor increases on Wednesday. 

The first surge was in response to a report on March growth in the U.S. service industry, which was lower than anticipated. The second increase followed a statement from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who expressed his expectation of rate cuts this year, despite the ongoing strength of both inflation and the economy.

On Wednesday, ADP revealed that private payroll growth in March reached 184,000, surpassing February’s 155,000 and expectations of 148,000. The highly anticipated Nonfarm Payrolls report from the government, due Friday morning, is expected to be the main event on jobs, with economists forecasting an addition of 200,000.

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The global cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.49 trillion, showing a 1.46%  decrease in the past 24 hours.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average wrapped up Wednesday slightly lower as stocks continued to grapple with their second-quarter slump. The 30-stock Dow declined by 43.10 points, or 0.11%, concluding at 39,127.14, marking its third consecutive day in the red. 

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 made a gain of 0.11%, closing at 5,211.49 for its first positive session of the week. The Nasdaq Composite saw a slight increase of 0.23%, finishing at 16,277.46.

The ongoing challenge of higher rates continued to impact stocks. ADP data released Wednesday revealed that private payrolls in March exceeded expectations, providing further evidence of the economy’s resilience. This comes at a time when investors are becoming more apprehensive about the trajectory of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

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Analyst Notes: Cryptocurrency analyst Michael Van de Poppe suggests that Bitcoin is currently consolidating and may be peaking prior to the halving. Van de Poppe believes that two crucial factors indicate that a new all-time high (ATH) may not occur before the halving.

"If Bitcoin dips further in the Summer, I’ll be happy to be buying it at $56-60K. It’s still altcoins time."

The co-founders of Glassnode, Jan Happel and Yann Allemann, who go by the handle Negentropic on the social media platform X, have stated that Bitcoin has the potential to surge by over 278% from its present price before experiencing a retracement in a blow-off top scenario.

"How do we need to study BTC? If we look at BTC in a normal chart, the target in the blow-off top seems to be ~$112,000. However, if we look at BTC in a logarithmic chart, we may have ~$250,000 as a target. Still we notice the long-term divergence. There is an end date to the rally."