Bitcoin BTC price holds firm above USD 30K, Ether ETH price hovers near USD 1.9K ahead of CPI, Shapella upgrade

Bitcoin (BTC) held above $30,000 on Tuesday as investors awaited the March US Consumer Price Index (CPI) report and Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade on Wednesday.

The largest cryptocurrency by market value recently topped $30,200, up over 3% in the last 24 hours. BTC surpassed the psychological $30,000 mark late Monday evening (ET) for the first time since last June. Analysts expect the March CPI to continue the recent slowing trend, with the rate rising 5.2% year-on-year, compared to 6% in February. The monthly rate is also expected to cool off.

“Traders [are] Speculation that this week’s CPI number could arrive at levels that will prompt the Fed to consider pausing rate hikes at the next meeting, thereby boosting assets like Bitcoin,” said James Lavish, managing partner at Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. to CoinDesk in an email.

Lavish added that if BTC continues to rise “with conviction,” a move straight into the mid-to-high $30,000s is likely, forcing short speculators to stock and buy instead. Some investors are trying to position themselves before that.”

Analysts at K33 Research highlighted in a note to clients on Tuesday that open interest (OI) in BTC perpetuals rose 10% on Monday to 297,000 BTC, the highest daily growth in open interest since early October. This surge was followed by volatility and a daily decline.

“While BTC’s performance has varied following OI’s surges, it has tended to indicate long or short squeezes,” analysts wrote, adding that similar daily growth in OI was seen during a spring 2022 rally and before the short Squeeze performed in July 2021.

Ether (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency, recently traded around $1,895, up 0.3% from the same time Monday. Validators and market watchers will be eyeing Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade, which is expected to go live on Wednesday evening (ET) and will mean validators can withdraw their long-locked ETH from the Beacon chain.

Crypto data firm Kaiko highlighted in a report on Tuesday that ETH markets have been heavily spot-driven over the past month, with the perpetual futures-to-spot ratio hitting its lowest level since the network’s merger in September. In contrast, by the start of the year, that ratio had risen to almost double its pre-merger level.

Among other digital tokens, Solana’s SOL surged over 12% to around $23.2, while ETC, the token of Ethereum Classic, an offshoot or fork of Ethereum, gained over 4% to change hands at $21.6. The CoinDesk Market Index, which measures the overall performance of the crypto market, was up 2.3% on the day.

The rally in the crypto market also coincided with the continued momentum in crypto-related stocks as of Monday. Shares in bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) closed down 12% on Tuesday, while both exchange Coinbase (COIN) and enterprise software company MicroStrategy (MSTR), a major BTC owner, are up more than 6%.

Stock markets were mixed on Tuesday afternoon, with the S&P 500 closing flat and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipping 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 0.2%.

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