Crypto markets saw a moderate rally on Friday, Oct. 24, after fresh U.S. economic data showed that annual inflation rose to 3% for the first time since January, reinforcing bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week.
Bitcoin (BTC) climbed 2% to briefly reach over $111,500 before retracing slightly, while the total crypto market capitalization rallied 1.5% to reach $3.85 trillion, according to CoinGecko.
Ethereum (ETH) rose 2.6% in the past 24 hours to $3,973, while BNB (BNB) gained 2.8% to $1,117, mostly trading sideways after a sharp spike yesterday on news that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao received a U.S. presidential pardon.
XRP (XRP) rallied an even stronger 4% to $2.50, extending its weekly gains to nearly 10%.
Meanwhile, Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGE) are both up just over 1% on the day.
Most of the remaining top-100 crypto assets by market cap are up 1-3% over the past 24 hours, regaining some of their recent losses as markets face geopolitical uncertainty and trade war fears.
Glassnode analysts noted Friday in an X post that Bitcoin’s Relative Unrealized Loss — which measures the U.S. dollar loss of all coins currently underwater — remains below 5%, a sign of ongoing bull market strength.
“The current bull market has held this structure since November 2023, making it more persistent than the equivalent phases in the last two cycles,” they said.
Big Movers and Liquidations
Among the top-100 assets, ChainOpera AI (COAI) and Zcash (ZEC) are once again the biggest gainers, up 21% and 14% respectively.
Meanwhile, today’s biggest losers are TRON (TRX) and MemeCore (M), which are down 3.2% and 2.4% respectively.
Data from Coinglass shows that $246 million in leveraged positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, including $153.5 million in shorts and $92.6 million in longs. Ethereum accounted for $72.3 million of that total, followed by Bitcoin at $61.3 million, and altcoins with $19.5 million.
ETFs and Macro Conditions
On Thursday, Oct. 23, Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $20.33 million in net inflows, while spot Ethereum ETFs saw $127.5 million in outflows, according to SoSoValue. Analysts at Glassnode pointed out in a separate X post that Bitcoin ETF outflows have often coincided with local market lows.
“When flows stabilize or turn positive, it has historically aligned with renewed demand and the early stages of trend recovery,” Glassnode added.
On the macro side, the first U.S. economic report since the government shutdown was published today, September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. Per the report, the annual rate of U.S. inflation rose to 3%, the highest so far this year, but a slower-than-expected increase from August’s 2.9%.
Month over month, prices climbed 0.3%, just under the 0.4% economists had predicted.
Without food and energy, prices rose 0.2% for the month and 3% for the year, a bit below expectations.
Bitfinex analysts noted in commentary shared with The Defiant that liquidity remains “patchy as banks tap the Fed repo facility and short term funding markets show mild stress which could amplify post CPI volatility.”
Nic Puckrin, crypto analyst and co-founder of The Coin Bureau, said in commentary to The Defiant that the report was the “most impactful” one of the year, given that no other government economic reports have come out since the shutdown. He added:
“As we head into the weekend and liquidity gets thinner, we could see a more pronounced move higher as investors continue to rotate from gold into Bitcoin, provided there is no negative news later in the day or over the weekend. If Bitcoin manages to scale a resistance level of $116,500, this will clear the ground toward a new all-time high.”
