TL;DR
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Fears of further rate hikes caused BTC to sell off on Fri, from ~$72k to ~$68.4k, before bouncing back up to ~$69.3k (where it stayed for most of the weekend).
Full Story
This is going to sound odd, but…
Crypto prices tanked on Friday, because the economy was too healthy.
Here’s what we mean:
The Federal Reserve is looking for weakness in the economy — enough weakness to allow them to lower interest rates, without causing more inflation.
Cause when they lower interest rates, everyone’s loan/credit repayments become a little cheaper, allowing for us to spend more money.
…but consumers having more money to play with, typically incentivizes businesses to inflate their prices (which is what the Fed is trying to fight).
So they’re hoping to see signs of a weakening economy, that will allow them to lower rates enough for us all to get by, without everyone going on a spending spree.
If these signs don’t show, the Fed will likely keep interest rates higher for longer (possibly even raising them again).
So when unemployment rates were shown to have risen last Friday, that was a good sign in the Fed’s eyes…unfortunately job growth rose to cancel a lot of that out, raising fears of further rate hikes.
As a result, Bitcoin (and the rest of the crypto market) sold off, with BTC moving from ~$72k, to ~$68.4k in a matter of hours, before bouncing back up to ~$69.3k and hovering there for most of the weekend.
Alright, now you know!
