Bitcoin Rollercoaster on Powell Speech, SAND and ROSE Rally Over 25% (Market Watch)

The past 24 hours were quite tumultuous within the cryptocurrency market as major large caps went through a rollercoaster during the speech of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve – Jerome Powell.

Meanwhile, some altcoins are having a go at new multi-week highs, charting gains upwards of 25% on the day. Let’s dive in.

Bitcoin and Large-Caps Pump, Dump, and Pump Again

Yesterday, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve – Jerome Powell – was talking on the matters of inflation, the current and future state of the US economy.

He said little that he hadn’t already, reiterating his comments from the previous week that the economy’s disinflation (or inflation that’s slowing down, in his words) is still within its very early stages – particularly in the housing sector.

As it’s always the case, this caused the market to move. Initially, the price skyrocketed to a high above $23,300, but almost immediately after the speech, all the gains were wiped out in what turned out to be a chop.

btc_price_chart_0802231 — Source: TradingView

Fortunately, the bulls were able to regroup and retake control, pushing the price back above $23K in the hours that followed.

This entire rodeo ended up with about $84 million worth of liquidated positions in the past 24 hours.

SAND and ROSE Rally Ahead

Altcoins experienced even more volatility than BTC. Most of the market is painted green. The cryptocurrencies with larger market capitalization failed to chart any considerable gains. These include ETH, XRP, SOL, SHIB, ATOM, LTC, and others – all of which are painting increases between 0.5% and 2%.

img1_heatmap_0802231 — Source: Quantify Crypto

At the same time, though, some altcoins exploded in value. The best performer of the day is SAND – the native cryptocurrency of the Sandbox ecosystem. The team revealed a partnership of a sort with Saudi Arabia, which catapulted the price of its coin. Oasis Protocol (ROSE) also followed suit with about 25% gains in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency Fear and Greed index continues improving, and it currently stands at 58 points. According to the metric, the market is in a state of Greed, which is an improvement from yesterday when it was Neutral.