Crypto recap: Bitcoin tanks on CPI data, CAKE, S, buck bearish trend

(Originally posted on : Invezz )

Bitcoin continued trading in a narrow range today as fresh economic data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics pushed prices to a 9-day low.

The cryptocurrency market cap dropped 3.26% at the time of writing, with over $300 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours.

The majority—$222.34 million—came from long positions, indicating that a lot of bullish bets were caught off guard by the latest market downturn.

Aligning with the prevailing bearish sentiment, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index slipped one point to 46, marking its second dip into fear territory this week.

Despite the current risk-off sentiment, a few altcoins managed to record double-digit profits today.

Why did Bitcoin price drop?

Bitcoin reacted to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which showed a 3% year-over-year increase, and came in higher than the anticipated 2.9%.

The Core CPI, excluding food and energy, also came in hotter than expected at 3.3% versus the forecasted 3.1%. 

Markets had been pricing in a more favorable inflation trend, especially after December’s data hinted at easing price pressures.

However, January’s figures challenged that narrative, triggering a sharp sell-off across risk assets over the past few weeks.

Bitcoin hit an intraday low of $94,119 right after the data was published.

Adding to the pressure, Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated a cautious stance on interest rates earlier this week, where he hinted that there was no urgency to cut them anytime soon.

However, he acknowledged that excessively delaying rate cuts could hamper economic growth and employment, though this did little to reassure jittery markets. 

Traders are currently cautious, as reflected in the CME FedWatch Tool, which now shows a 97.5% probability that the Federal Reserve will keep rates unchanged at its March 19 meeting.

Without a strong bullish catalyst, Bitcoin is likely to stay within its current range.

Will Bitcoin go up?

Some of the selling pressure might persist in the coming days, as data from Glassnode shows signs of panic among short-term holders.

As of February 11, those who bought BTC within the past month had realized $834 million in losses, while loss-making sales from holders of one to six months totaled just $126.5 million.

However, additional data from Glassnode suggests this selling pressure could wane soon as BTC has managed to hold near $100,000 despite its sell-side pressure reaching its highest levels since the Three Arrows Capital collapse in mid-2022.

According to multiple experts, this is a sign of seller exhaustion, potentially setting the stage for stabilization or a reversal if buying interest picks up.

Yet, pseudonymous analyst C2M has urged traders to remain cautious as Bitcoin needs to reclaim key resistance levels before a bullish reversal can be confirmed. 

As of publication time, Bitcoin was hovering above $95,000, down 1.5% in the past 24 hours.

The majority of the top altcoins followed Bitcoin’s lead and posted little to no gains, with the exception of a few prominent players. Most of the gains were concentrated across low-cap tokens and meme coins.

The total altcoin market cap continued falling for the second consecutive day to hit $1.24 trillion by the late Asian trading hours.

Meanwhile, the altcoin season index slipped one point to 42, confirming Bitcoin’s current dominance.

The top three gainers for the day were:

PancakeSwap

PancakeSwap (CAKE) was the leading gainer of the day among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap. Over the past 24 hours, the altcoin surged 17.7% to an intraday high of $2.32 at press time, with its market cap seated at $677 million.

Source: CoinMarketCap

CAKE rallied on community hype as the multi-chain decentralized exchange disclosed that it had burned over 172,000 CAKE tokens in January through two oversubscribed IFOs.

PancakeSwap is also holding strong in the decentralized exchange market.

According to DeFiLlama, it processed the highest trading volume in the past 24 hours, surpassing major DEXs like Uniswap and Raydium.

Its volume was $3.05 billion, while the other two had $2.18 billion and $1.569 billion, respectively.

Sonic

Over the past day, Sonic (S) rose 13.05%, exchanging hands at $0.5219, while its market cap soared to nearly $1.5 billion at the time of publication.

Its daily trading volume was also up 50% hovering around $153.05 million with a circulating supply of 3.17 billion tokens.

Source: CoinMarketCap

The majority of gains came amid investor interest after Sonic achieved a new all-time high in total value locked on Feb. 12, which stood at $357.65 million, per data from DeFiLlama.

The growth in TVL marks a 3,000% jump in under two months, which many perceive as a sign of rapid adoption.

This growth follows its December 2024 upgrade on Fantom, which improved the network’s scalability, speed, and efficiency.

On top of that, Sonic is planning a $100 million airdrop to reward users and boost liquidity, which has helped generate some of the current hype around the altcoin.

Onyxcoin

Onyxcoin (XCN) was up 9.8% over the last day, trading at $0.023 per coin, rebounding from its downtrend seen over the past 9 days.

The price rally drove its market cap to over $775 million.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Most of these gains came as the project revealed that OnyxDAO was considering an OIP to issue tokens for users who accidentally sent their XCN tokens to the token’s contract address, permanently eliminating them from the token supply.

The altcoin has also secured a new USD margin pair on Kraken Pro, which might have helped it hold onto its recent gains.

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