An eerie stillness
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 15th May 2024.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
Don’t invest in crypto unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.
What’s up
Bitcoin Steady Ahead Of Pivotal Inflation News
Risk markets await, and obviously would welcome, a looser supply of money.
But rates probably aren’t going anywhere soon. At least Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell doesn't seem to think so. And a U.S. governmental gauge of wholesale price inflation ran surprisingly warm yesterday, with the producer price index (PPI) pointing toward higher prices coming down the pipe for consumers.
The even more closely watched consumer price index (CPI) report on inflation levels observed in April is set to come out this morning.
Maybe inflation stays right where it is. Investors would boo a higher-than-expected reading.
Reflecting a sense of deer-in-headlights risk on/off caution, Bitcoin is little changed over the past day. As of Wednesday at 7:04 a.m. (EST), the largest of all digital assets sat just shy of $62,700 on a 1.5% gain in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. The total market cap of all combined crypto assets is $2.39 trillion (+0.5%).
One memecoin on which we are keeping a watchful eye in the aftermath of Manic Meme Monday is Floki (FLOKI) which is in the midst of an eye-popping trot.
This Dogecoin descendent (CoinGecko's No. 54 coin) has gained 15% in the past 24 hours. That is far and away the biggest such leap among Top 100 coins. DOGE, by way of contrast, gained 1.1% since this time yesterday. Shiba Inu (SHIB) is up 1.3%.
As for FLOKI taking flight, a CoinGape report suggests it has to do with a listing on a large European trading app and yet another proposal to burn still more supply.
What's down
Ethereum Mildly Green, Kind Of Blue
Ethereum shaded slightly green as Wednesday morning rolled on but it sure doesn't feel that way.
ETH was $2,907 as of 7:22 a.m. (EST).
The second-largest crypto lost its $3K handle five days ago. It's down 11% in the past month.
Meanwhile, the odds of a spot ETH ETF winning SEC approval are now being described as "slim to none."
As ETH battles to reclaim $3K, Pepe (PEPE), which runs on the Ethereum network, just today hit a fresh all-time high of $0.00001151. That was as of about 3 a.m. (EST). PEPE has shed 5% off the high.
What's next
Hot Off The Presses: Inflation Cools
A fresh batch of CPI data was due at any moment as we guzzled coffee and scoured news feeds for directional clues and conventional wisdom.
Regardless of today’s number, hopes for a rate cut are not high. Economists do expect inflation to wilt eventually, maybe?
“The trajectory is still down," said Michael Pugliese, an economist at Wells Fargo. "But it’s been a more gradual downward move relative to expectations."
"We're just going to have to see," said Jerome Powell, the Fed Chairman, speaking to a group of bankers in The Netherlands on Tuesday.
Per a consensus of economists, the headline rate for April was expected to be 3.4%, lower than March when it was 3.5%.
Okay people, the CPI number came in as we were taking one last swig of financial market news. The CPI for April, year-over-year, was 3.4%, as expected.
