Bitcoin stalls near $30,000 after the token’s biggest drop in over a month

Bitcoin’s 2023 rebound has stalled around the closely watched $30,000 level, hampered by the latest US crypto crackdown and a more sober assessment of the outlook for Federal Reserve policy.

The largest token fell as much as 1.1 per cent and traded at $29,470 as of 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday in Singapore, after sinking 3 per cent a day earlier in its worst drop since March 9.

An index of the top 100 digital assets was also on the back foot.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday added to its digital-asset clampdown, saying that crypto platform Bittrex broke the agency’s rules for years.

Today we charged crypto asset trading platform Bittrex Inc. and its co-founder and former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.https://t.co/kBsIFMp7ZA

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) April 17, 2023

The growing regulatory heat and cooling expectations for eventual Fed interest-rate cuts are damping investor enthusiasm.

Recent economic data have helped to firm bets on a quarter-point Fed rate hike in May while tempering projections for subsequent policy easing.

Bitcoin may pull back toward $27,000 if “the market continues to take out some of the 60 basis points or so of rate cuts still priced into year-end,” said Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG Australia Pty.

The digital currency has jumped 78 per cent this year, outstripping an 8 per cent climb in global stocks, as crypto markets partially rebounded from 2022’s crash.

But the long shadow of digital-asset bankruptcies and scandals, most notably the collapse of FTX, continues to hang over the sector.

Read: Bitcoin climbs past $30,000 for the first time since June 2022