Bitcoin price gains after US consumer inflation gauge comes in cooler than expected

Bitcoin BTC +2.94% short liquidations have spiked to more than $28 million in the past 24 hours after the largest digital asset by market cap rallied above the $69,000 mark.

The rise in bitcoin’s price saw a total of $48 million in liquidated bitcoin positions. The wider cryptocurrency market was hit by over $198 million in liquidations in the same period, according to Coinglass data .

The rally follows the release of U.S. inflation data on Wednesday that showed headline CPI increased by a cooler-then-expected 3.3% year-over-year in May, versus the 3.4% expected by economists, according to FactSet.

FOMC meeting following CPI print

Later today, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate-setting meeting is anticipated to yield no surprises, with CME Group forecasting a 99.4% probability that the Fed will maintain the current interest rate of 5.25% to 5.50%, rather than implementing a rate cut.

However, a Reuters poll of economists indicated the Fed is likely to reduce rates twice this year, beginning in September.

According to Nansen Principle Research Analyst Aurelie Barthere, after the CPI print, it is expected the Fed will revise growth down and remove some rate cuts to align with markets.

"We think that Powell will sound as dovish as he can be considering the data, in the press conference, his tone has diverged from the rest of the Committee's stance lately," Barthere told The Block.

Bitcoin is changing hands at around $69,300 at the time of writing, having increased over 3% in the past 24 hours, according to The Block’s price page . The price of ether has increased more than 2% to $3,635 in the same period.