Bitcoin (BTC) recently had a temporary increase that sent its price beyond $19,000, a gain of over 7% and hit a new all-time high since it began gapping down in early November following the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.
After a 63% drop in 2022, Bitcoin is up approximately 14% this year.
Bitcoin cracked $19K, its its biggest one-day return in two months. Plus, security firms such say blockchain bridges can avoid some of the carnage of last year with security features built during the bear market.@Liqquidity and @shauryamalwa report.https://t.co/gLljEwa3hp
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) January 13, 2023
Coinbase (COIN) shares have risen by 4% in recent trade, up 35% this year. Even more striking are the changes in the stocks of bitcoin miners: Competitors Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Hut 8 Mining (HUT) followed the same trend, and Marathon Digital (MARA) is up 16% on Thursday and 83% year to date.
As of this writing, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s (GBTC) discount to net asset value (NAV) has shrunk to 36.4% from a high of almost 50% at the end of 2022. MicroStrategy (MSTR) shares rose 5.5%, which increased 42% this year. MicroStrategy is a software business with over 130,000 bitcoins in its reserves.
In line with forecasts and down from November’s 7.1% growth, the Consumer Price Index gained 6.5% year over year in December. Due to this decline, the Fed is likely to reduce its rate-hiking pace to 25 basis points from 50 in December and 75 before that.
The private client director at Swan Bitcoin, Steven Lubka, predicts that inflation will continue to ease in the first half of 2023, allowing the Fed to ease off on its monetary tightening.
Nonetheless, he sounded a caution, saying that consumer prices in the year’s second half would not be so benign and that the central bank might have to deal with a slowing or recessionary economy alongside growing inflation.
