Market Wrap: Cryptos Recover Slightly From FTX Fatigue With a Dose of Encouraging Inflation Data

On Day Four of crypto exchange FTX’s near-death experience, crypto markets sighed and did what they often have done historically: rally.

On Thursday they had cause for optimism when an unexpectedly positive Consumer Price Index report indicated the U.S. Federal Reserve’s recent diet of hawkish, 75 basis point interest rate hikes were working towards reducing a year-long bout of high inflation.

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Bitcoin was recently trading near $18,000, a more than 13% increase over the past 24 hours that made its Wednesday plunge below $16,000 – to a level not seen since late 2020 – seem antiquated.

Ether was recently changing hands over $1,300, up almost 17% from Wednesday, same time. All other cryptos in the top 20 by market capitalization were feeling more like themselves again, rising well into the double digits as FTX and inflation fatigue waned – at least temporarily. Even FTX’s beleaguered FTT token, whose accumulation by the exchange’s sister company Alameda Research ignited the current mess, was up over 50% to $3.40. Solana’s SOL, which also figured prominently on Alameda’s balance sheet, raising investor alarm, jumped more than 40%.

The CoinDesk Market Index, a broad-based index designed to measure the market capitalization weighted performance of the digital asset market, rose 12%.

Stocks soared, staging their biggest rally in two years as investors celebrated the heartening CPI inflation data. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 7.3%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) increased 5.5% and 3.7%, respectively.

In an email to CoinDesk, 3iQ Head of Research Mark Connors noted optimistically that the “one persistent development” distinguishing “the crypto winter from all others is the emergence of ETH dominance as measured by the ETH/BTC ratio.”

By Glenn Williams Jr.

Crypto prices have been volatile, although markets have seen worse in their brief history.

BTC’s Nov. 9 decline was its 10th-largest decrease since 2015, although it's only the second-largest decline for 2022, highlighting how tumultuous the year has been.

Read the full technical take here.