Bitcoin (BTC) successfully broke above $24,000 for the first time in over five months this morning before breaking below the psychological barrier that has been the target of long traders since the beginning of the year.

The benchmark cryptocurrency responded positively to the Federal Reserve’s 25bp interest rate hike, despite investors generally expecting it.

Evidently, traders cashed in their profits, causing a bit of a correction, although the BTC/USDT pair appears to be in a strong position.

Bitcoin (BTC) tops 24k before traders withdraw money – Source: currency.com

Ethereum tested its own critical resistance line by finally recouping all the gains lost in the wake of the FTX crash last November.

The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency has lagged bitcoin in 2023 recovery bets, but a 3.5% rise yesterday and further gains this morning sent the ETH/USDT pair testing $1,700.

ETH is currently sitting just below this resistance point due to a strong sell wall thrown at US$1,700 that may prove difficult for the bull to overcome.

metaverse coins

Meta (formerly Facebook) just posted its first revenue drop in history, forcing Mark Zuckerberg to announce a multi-million dollar share buyback to investors.

News of the buyback had its desired effect, sending Meta shares soaring more than 25%.

Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is responsible for developing Zuckerberg’s vision of the metaverse, extended its operating losses to a staggering US$13bn. Has the META rally rubbed off on other metaverse projects anyway?

It would seem so.

Probably the two most popular metaverse cryptocurrencies, Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND) added high digits overnight, pushing their respective market capitalizations to $1.47 and $1.1 billion. .

Axie Infinity (AXS) jumped 8%, though it is still in the red week-over-week, while Bored Ape Yacht Club’s ApeCoin (APE) added around 6%.

All of the above outperformed bitcoin, but its trading volumes remain stunted, likely to hamper further momentum. MANA, for example, has 66% less business activity compared to this time last year.

The main altcoin engines

Today’s biggest gain in the top 100 set was hybrid centralized/decentralized exchange project Loopring, which mounted a 25% rally to bring its market value closer to the US$580 million mark.

Layer 2 protocol Optimism (OP) also added more than 20%, while decentralized finance (DeFi) projects Convex Finance (CVX), dYdX (DYDX) and Synthetix (SNX) were also trending.

The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) added 4.45% overnight, signaling a net positive session for the broader cryptocurrency market.

The global cryptocurrency market capitalization currently stands at $1.09 trillion, while the total value locked in DeFi protocols is slightly above $49 billion.