Mixed signs with an eye on the US for cryptocurrencies

House lawmakers have reported progress in discussions to raise the debt ceiling, although whether they will reach an agreement with the Biden administration remains uncertain.

Bitcoin hovered between $26,400 and $26,500 for long stretches yesterday, slightly above where it crossed the previous day but below the narrow range it held over the previous 12 days of May.

The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of the performance of crypto markets, rose 0.4%.

“For now, we’re stuck in a kind of holding until we see a solution to this debt ceiling crisis,” said Dave Weisberger, CEO and co-founder of CoinRoutes, an algorithmic trading platform for cryptocurrencies.

Investors were also affected by the unexpectedly positive weekly data on unemployment and GDP. The Labor Department said 229,000 Americans filed for jobless benefits last week, well below the 245,000 expected, and the U.S. economy expanded 1.3 percent, its third straight quarter of growth. Those figures failed to roil equity markets, although a strong forecast from graphics chip giant Nvidia based on the growing needs of artificial intelligence sent tech shares higher as the tech Nasdaq rose 1.7 percent.

Bitcoin is on the rise and its market cap has risen to over $510 billion. Its dominance of altcoins, however, remains stagnant at 46.2%.

The broader cryptocurrency market cap stands at $1.1 trillion, adding $15 billion on a daily basis.

By midday Friday, Bitcoin is up 0.26% at $26,476.02, while Ethereum is up 0.54% at $1,813.30.

As for other well-known cryptocurrencies, Solana is down 0.90% at $19.33, while Cardano is down 0.66% at $0.35742200.

Polkadot is down 1.17% at $5.22, Dogecoin is down 0.01% at $0.07084182 and Shiba Inu is down 0.41% at $0.00000847.

Natasha Papadimitropoulou

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