Bitcoin back above US$26,000 after CPI release

Bitcoin rose on Thursday morning in Asia to trade above the US$26,000 support level. Ether also rose to reclaim US$1,600. All other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies moved up, with Solana spearheading the winners with a 24-hour rise of over 2%. The rally followed the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) release on Wednesday, which showed an acceleration in the annual inflation rate in August, while the core CPI that excludes food and energy prices posed a deceleration. U.S. stock futures traded higher, after Wall Street closed mixed on Wednesday.

Bitcoin reclaims US$26,000; altcoins stable after bankrupt FTX received approval to liquidate

Bitcoin rose 1.45% in the last 24 hours to US$26,251.64 as of 07:20 a.m. in Hong Kong, adding 1.88% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s largest cryptocurrency reclaimed the US$26,000 support level on Wednesday afternoon and touched a daily high of over US$26,370 on early Thursday morning.

Despite reclaiming the key US$26,000 line, Bitcoin’s momentum has seemingly weakened on Tuesday, but is “still strong enough to hold on to most of what was reclaimed after the bounce,” Keith Alan, co-founder of monitoring resource Material Indicators, tweeted on Wednesday.

Bitcoin still faces multiple technical resistances, including a “death cross” between the token’s 50-day and 200-day simple moving averages – which currently sit at US$27,444 and US$27,670, as well as a 100-day moving average at US$28,292 that outlines the ceiling of the range, according to Alan on Tuesday.

Ether also gained 0.95% to US$1,609.32 but still traded 1.64% lower in the past seven days. The second top crypto reached a 24-hour high of US$1,619.11 on Tuesday night.

Bitcoin and Ether prices briefly dipped on early Thursday morning in Asia after the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX received court approval to sell its US$3.4 billion worth of crypto assets. The selling is capped at US$100 million per week, which can be extended to US$200 million.

FTX’s current crypto holdings include US$1.16 billion in Solana’s SOL and US$560 million in Bitcoin, according to a Monday court filing.

Despite the incoming FTX liquidation, crypto prices remain largely stable. All other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies posted gains in the past 24 hours. SOL led the winners, which rose 2.70% to US$18.43 but lost 6.70% for the week.

Visa wrote in a Tuesday research report that Solana blockchain “has attributes like high transaction throughput and scalability at low cost that help make it a good candidate for payments and Visa’s stablecoin settlement pilot.” The global payment giant announced a partnership with Solana on Sept. 5 to expand its USDC stablecoin settlement pilot to Solana’s blockchain

The total crypto market capitalization gained 1.07% in the past 24 hours to US$1.04 trillion, while trading volume dropped 21.30% to US$27.63 billion.