Bitcoin consolidates, altcoins and stocks climb higher after Powell hints at rate cuts

Financial markets trended higher on Thursday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted that while the central bank is in no hurry to ease the current monetary policy, interest rate cuts are likely to come sometime this year as long as inflation continues to move towards their 2% target.  

“If the economy evolves over that path, then we do think that the process of carefully removing the restrictive stance of policy can and will begin over the course of this year,” Powell said while testifying before the Senate Banking Committee.

That was all the signal traders needed as stocks climbed higher, resulting in a new record high for the S&P 500 while the Nasdaq sits just below its record high. At the closing bell, the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all finished in the green, up 1.03%, 0.34%, and 1.51%, respectively. 

Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin (BTC) steadily climbed from support at $66,000 in the early hours to a high of $68,090 in the afternoon. At the time of writing, the top crypto trades at $67,390, a gain of 1.4% on the 24-hour chart. 

BTC/USD Chart by TradingView

And it’s not just spot BTC ETF flows that are helping BTC maintain its elevated price level despite a history of volatility following a new all-time high. As noted by Bitwise Invest quantitative research analyst Mallika Kolar in a post on X, retail buyers are also buying spot BTC on the open market en masse. 

People are buying Bitcoin. Spot trading volume has shot up almost 680% since the start of the year. pic.twitter.com/KlGSa4ZtUG

— Mallika Kolar (@mallikakolar) March 6, 2024

Price predictions after the halving

With the next Bitcoin halving predicted to occur sometime around April 19, analysts have begun to look at the top crypto’s performance following previous halvings to try and gauge where it could head in the months and years ahead. 

According to a study by crypto tax experts at CoinLedger that analyzed the average price increase following the 2016 and 2020 halvings, BTC could climb above $84,000 within three months post-halving and could surge as high as $360,000 over the next year. 

In the three months after the 2016 and 2020 halvings, “The average increase across these two events is 21.95%, which would mean that in 2024, three months after Bitcoin halves, the price could rise to $84,145 if it were to follow historical patterns (based on a price of $69,000 at the time of halving),” the report said. 

On the six-month timeframe, the analysts said past halvings saw an average increase of 67.73%.

“If a similar pattern were to follow, then Bitcoin could rise to a high of $115,733,” they said. “Although this seems like a high estimation Bitcoin has shocked people before in past bull runs.”

And one year after the last two halvings, Bitcoin posted an average increase of 423%. 

“This would give Bitcoin a price of $361,152,” they determined, before warning that “It is extremely unlikely that Bitcoin will reach this figure within 12 months, however, many analysts have figures of $150,000 to $250,000 in 2025.”

“Bitcoin has performed well recently very early on into this cycle,” a spokesperson for CoinLedger said. “This has got many people excited about how high Bitcoin could rise in the coming year and the halving only adds to this, as history has proven that halving events can positively impact the price.” 

“Time will tell which Bitcoin price predictions for the 2024 halving come true, if any,” they added. “As always, we recommend doing your own research, staying on top of the latest industry happenings, and never investing more money than you can afford to lose!”   

According to renowned crypto analyst Willy Woo, some of the higher price targets are not as outlandish as they may first appear, because technically, we are still in the warm-up phase and the real bull market has yet to begin. 

So you think we’re in a bull market?

We’re not, this has been the warm up. A full fundamentals driven bull market is marked by a break of the upper blue band.

When it breaks, TradFi is in for a shock. pic.twitter.com/4v6oSm3mAk

— Willy Woo (@woonomic) March 5, 2024

Altseason rally continues

The altcoin market continued to benefit from traders rotating their Bitcoin profits into low-cap projects as a large majority of tokens in the top 200 traded in the green once again on Thursday. 

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

DeXe (DEXE) led the field with a gain of 35.6%, followed by an increase of 33.3% for AIOZ Network (AIOZ) and a gain of 31.7% for Jupiter (JPT). Recently high-flying meme coins were the biggest losers, with Bonk (BONK), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and Pepe (PEPE) recording losses of 11.6%, 8%, and 7.5%, respectively. 

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.55 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 51.8%.