Ouch, Brits cried out in unison after seeing this morning’s inflation read.
Instead of an expected three basis point fall, year-on-year consumer prices remained sticky at 8.7%, with core prices actually increasing three basis points to 7.1%.
This all but confirms yet another interest rate hike from the Bank of England tomorrow, bringing the running total to a baker’s dozen.
Bitcoin’s price fell half a percent immediately following the inflation call, but substantial gains over the past two days have kept the BTC/USDT pair in a healthy position.
Following a 5% surge on Monday and further gains in this morning’s Asia reading window, bitcoin BTC/USDT managed to hit six-week highs of US$29,000 before a slight correction back to US$28,870 in recent hours.
Bitcoin (BTC) nabs a sharp price rally – Source: currency.com
Much of the bullishness was due to the launch of EDX Markets, a news cryptocurrency exchange backed by traditional financial heavyweights Fidelity, Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) and Citadel.
Products traded on EDX include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
In a time when incumbent crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance and Kraken are feeling the regulatory whip, EDX sounds like it could be a gamble, but chief executive Jamil Nazarali touted EDX’s compliance and investor protections under a new non-custodial model.
EDX’s prospects aside, the crypto markets clearly saw this as a bullish move that could open bitcoin and Ethereum up to swathes of new investors.
The ETH/USDT pair didn’t see as much upside as BTC/USDT, but still managed to add over 3% to change hands at US$1,812 at the time of writing.
The altcoin space enjoyed a boost too, with Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC) and LTC enjoying mid-to-high single-digit gains.
However, as discussed yesterday, bitcoin’s dominance has consistently surged as altcoins become increasingly out of favour among the cryptocurrency community.
At 51% of the global cryptocurrency market capitalisation of US$1.14tn, bitcoin’s dominance of the wider crypto markets remains at a two-year high.