- Bitcoin: The largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading for $19,142 at the time of writing.
- Analysts say that the crypto market could separate from the stock market this week.
Bitcoin price scarcely moved Wednesday as traders awaited critical inflation data due out Thursday. At the time of writing, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading for $19,142, which was a small 0.7% increase from the day before.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the consumer price index (CPI) tomorrow. This is a report that shows how the prices of a basket of common goods and services have changed over time. The index is used to guess how the inflation rate will change.
Depending on how things look, the CPI report could show that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates quickly to try to slow down the economy and stop inflation from going up.
Today, JPMorgan said that such a move could mean that the stock market could keep going down, as it usually does when the central bank raises the cost of borrowing money.
And when U.S. stocks go down, Bitcoin usually goes down as well (and the rest of the crypto market).
But even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 0.1%, or 28.34 points, at 29,210.85 and the S&P 500 ended the day down 11.81 points, or 0.3%, at 3,577.03, the cryptocurrency market seemed more stable.
Ethereum, the second largest digital asset, went up even more than Bitcoin and was trading at $1,300, a 1.4% increase over the past day.
At the time this was written, seven of the ten biggest cryptocurrencies by market cap had all gone up.
This year, the stock market and the crypto market as a whole have been very linked. But experts who spoke to Decrypt say that this link has weakened, albeit slightly, in the last month.
Even if Bitcoin does separate from the stock market, investors will likely try to guess which way the wind will blow, which will make for a volatile trading day.
