Expectations of a 50 basis point rate cut ignited the market, and BTC broke through $60,000

Original title: "Expectations of a 50 basis point rate cut ignite the market, bulls fight back strongly"

Original source: Bitpush

On Friday, all asset classes rose across the board, with U.S. stocks, cryptocurrencies, and gold rebounding, with less than six days left before the Federal Reserve's historic policy shift.

The market's rise is largely due to investors' expectations that the Federal Reserve may announce a 50 basis point rate cut after the Federal Open Market Committee meeting next Wednesday. Bill Dudley, former president of the New York Fed, said there is "good reason" for further rate cuts.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Fed watch tool currently shows a 49% chance of a 50 basis point rate cut, up from 28% on Thursday.

Bitpush data showed that earlier in the day, BTC surged by more than $1,500 in a short period of time, jumping from $58,000 to $59,700, and rose above $69,000 after the U.S. stock market closed. As of press time, BTC is trading at $60,280, up 4.24% in 24 hours.

Like the broader market, altcoins have performed strongly this week, with more than 90% of the top 200 tokens rising. Among them, Nervous Network (CKB) led the gains, up 45.3%, Pol (POL) up 12.1%, and Popcat (POPCAT) up 11.9%. Sun (SUN) fell the most, down 6.6%, while BinaryX (BNX) fell 5.4% and Worldcoin (WLD) fell 5.1%. The overall market value of cryptocurrencies is currently $2.1 trillion, with Bitcoin accounting for 56.4%.

U.S. stocks continued to climb. As of the close, the SP, Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes rose 0.54%, 0.72% and 0.65% respectively. Among them, the SP 500 and Nasdaq recorded their largest weekly gains since November last year.

Volatility is expected to increase further

This week, Bitcoin finally ended in an uptrend. Analysts at Secure Digital Markets said: "This price action is consistent with the recent pattern of increased volatility in low time frames, fluctuating within a six-month descending channel. If this trend continues, we could easily see BTC test the $62,000 to $64,000 range next week."

For Ethereum, analysts believe: "Ethereum (ETH) continues to underperform, as highlighted on the ETH/BTC chart. The daily chart shows no signs of slowing down the bearish momentum of the ETH/BTC pair, suggesting that it may struggle to keep up with Bitcoin in the short term."

Although the rate cut is good news for risky assets, Lennix Lai, chief commercial officer of OKX Global, believes that asset prices are unlikely to "only rise" from now on, so traders should be prepared for continued volatility.

“Given the current uncertainty in the market, the market is likely to be quite volatile for the rest of the month as traders react to broader economic indicators,” Lai said. “While short-term volatility is to be expected as traders react to economic indicators, increased institutional participation in the cryptocurrency market is likely to provide more stability and liquidity in the medium to long term.”

According to the Economist Impact Report commissioned by OKX, “69% of institutional investors plan to increase their allocation to digital assets in the next 2-3 years, which shows that confidence in the cryptocurrency market is growing despite short-term uncertainty.”

As for the drivers behind Bitcoin’s recent price action, Lai said, “It is largely driven by expectations of an upcoming rate cut and speculation about a new rate cut cycle. These macroeconomic factors, coupled with changes in investor sentiment, are driving market dynamics.”

“Currently, BTC’s key support and resistance levels are around $50,000, an area that is critical for traders as it could determine BTC’s future performance.”

That being said, we may see these levels change in the coming months as institutional participation increases and mainstream adoption grows." He said the outlook for BTC in the short term appears cautious, but optimistic about the long-term outlook, which is supported by a variety of factors, including increasing institutional adoption and investment; increasing regulatory clarity in major markets; and the expanding crypto ecosystem. According to Jason Pizzino, a cryptocurrency analyst and investor, the next phase of Bitcoin's bull run will begin once BTC turns $61,500 from resistance to support.

“If we start to see some testing and closing above $58,000 in the short term, that could be a nice early bounce that will lead to a test of the more important level in my analysis around $61,500, which was the 50% correction from March to August, which is the next key level for Bitcoin to test, overcome and consolidate, and basically the next phase of the bull market, pushing to new all-time highs,” Pizzino said in a YouTube show update.

Pizzino agrees that volatility could still play a major role and that Bitcoin could fall more than 15% from current levels, but the bullish thesis would not be invalidated.

“Bitcoin is still above key levels of about $52,000, $53,000, the August low of $49,000, and we’ve looked at previous downside levels - if Bitcoin falls again and goes all the way back to around $40,000, it will still be in a macro bull market. From there, a close above $61,500 again would start the path to the upside,” he said.

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