$260M Liquidated Amid Bitcoin’s Rollercoaster Prompted by Fed’s Rate Hike: Market Watch

Bitcoin’s price went on an expected rollercoaster yesterday after the US Federal Reserve Chairman announced yet another interest rate hike.

Most altcoins are deep in the red now, with several linked to the Tron blockchain dumping hard following the SEC allegations against Justin Sun.

BTC Dropped $2K

The global banking crisis, which unfolded in the past few weeks, pushed the primary cryptocurrency to a nine-month high above $28,000. The asset went even higher yesterday as it almost touched $29,000. This was ahead of the second FOMC meeting for the year.

Given everything that happened with SVB and other banking organizations, numerous prominent individuals, such as Bill Ackman and Elon Musk, suggested that the Fed should revert from its interest rate-hiking strategy. However, the country’s central bank didn’t follow their advice and increased the key interest rates by another 25 basis points.

BTC reacted with immediate price volatility. The asset fell from its multi-month peak all the way down to $26,700 (on Bitstamp). The rollercoaster continued in the following hours, but this time in the opposite direction. Naturally, this led to a large number of liquidations, with the total value standing at $260 million on a 24-hour scale.

As of now, the cryptocurrency trades close to $28,000 once again. Its market dominance has increased to 46.2%.

LTC, APT Defy the Odds

The altcoins experienced similar, if not even more enhanced, volatility following the Fed’s announcement. On a daily scale, though, most are in the red.

Ethereum dropped below $1,800, BNB is well beneath $330, and similar drops are evident from Ripple, Cardano, Polkadot, Solana, and others.

TRX has dumped the most from the larger-cap alts after the SEC went after Justin Sun. Despite his response to the allegations, other TRON-linked cryptocurrencies also fell hard.

Litecoin and Aptos are among the few examples of digital assets in the green. LTC has soared by 8.5%, while APT is up by 5.5%.

The crypto market cap is down by around $30 billion to $1.160 trillion.