Bitcoin declined on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve decided to maintain interest rates unchanged and its indication that rate cuts might be delayed. Additionally, Bitcoin’s downward movement was influenced by a mixed launch of investment products tracking the world’s top cryptocurrency and rival ether in Hong Kong.

At 12.02 pm IST, Bitcoin was down 3.3% at $57,629, while Ethereum dropped by 1.5% to $2,920.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell late on Wednesday said a rate hike was unlikely, but reiterated that a rate cut would be considered only if inflation in the economy eased further.Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex, said, “Bitcoin trades at $57,000 mark in the past 24 hours following the US Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain its benchmark interest rate between 5.25% and 5.50%. Since late February, Bitcoin has experienced a downward trend, largely influenced by macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical uncertainties. The next support level lies at the $56,600 level and the resistance is at $58,800 level.Meanwhile, Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus Crypto Platform, said, “Bitcoin registered a significant decline, dropping 4% today in response to macro and ecosystem developments. The move comes as Binance founder CZ received a 4-month prison sentence in the US, while the launch of spot ETFs in Hong Kong failed to excite investors.”The global cryptocurrency market cap declined by 2.4% to around $2.16 trillion in the last 24 hours.Other major crypto tokens such as BNB (-3.2%), Dogecoin (-3%), Toncoin (-4%), Shiba Inu (-0.2%), NEAR Protocol (-2.2%), and Uniswap (-0.5%) also fell. On the other hand, Solana, XRP, Cardano, and Polkadot surged up to 5%.

The volume of all stablecoins is now $98.61 billion, which is 92.67% of the total crypto market 24-hour volume, as per data available on CoinMarketCap.

In the last 24 hours, the market cap of Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, fell to $1.132 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance is currently 52.53%, according to CoinMarketCap. BTC volume in the last 24 hours rose 29.5% to $49.6 billion.

“Technically, BTC is now more than 20% down from its all-time high. It’s currently testing support at $57,000, and a drop below that could lead to a further decline to the $52,000-$53,000 range, with no significant support in between. Similarly, ETH needs to hold above $2,900; otherwise, it may drop to the $2,700 level,” said CoinDCX Research Team.

Despite the downturn, the ETH/BTC pair remains strong, indicating relative strength in some altcoins, with a few even showing gains amidst BTC’s decline, although most are in the red, CoinDCX said.

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