Investing.com– The price of bitcoin fell slightly on Friday, reversing some gains seen over the past two days, as a series of warnings from Federal Reserve officials largely cooled optimism about rate cuts. interest this year.
The world's largest cryptocurrency remained within a tight $60,000 to $70,000 trading range established over the past two months, seeing few catalysts to break out amid weak capital flows and tepid risk appetite.
fell 0.5% to $65,473.3 at 01:30 ET (05:30 GMT).
Bitcoin Price Set for Strong Week Amid Some Rate Cut Hopes
But even while trading within a range, Bitcoin was racking up strong gains over the past seven days, especially as it had fallen as low as $60,000 last week.
The token is up around 8% from the lows hit last Friday, buoyed mainly by weakness amid some signs of easing US inflation.
Some soft readings had traders starting to price in a higher likelihood that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September, a scenario that bodes well for speculative assets like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
But this enthusiasm faded somewhat on Friday, capping Bitcoin's gains after a series of Federal Reserve officials warned that the central bank needed to be more convinced that inflation was coming down.
Members of the Fed's rate-setting committee said the central bank needed to see more than just some soft inflation readings for a month before finalizing any plans for interest rate cuts.
His comments sparked a strong dollar rally and also halted a rally in most risk-driven assets.
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In addition to uncertainty over US rates, sentiment towards cryptocurrencies was also limited by fears of further regulatory action against the industry.
Crypto Price Today: Altcoins Pull Back Amid Rate Uncertainty
Among the broader cryptocurrency markets, major altcoins retreated on Friday and have mostly lagged Bitcoin over the past seven days as sentiment towards cryptocurrencies remained muted.
The world's No. 2 token fell 2.1%, while moving less than 1% in either direction.
Meme tokens largely followed a decline in their stock counterparts, as a rally in meme stocks like GameStop Corp (NYSE đŸ™‚ and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE đŸ™‚) largely reversed course in recent sessions.
It fell 3.6% on Friday, while it lost 2.8%.
