The crypto market has started on the back foot in a rate-sensitive week, with a number of central banks expected to raise rates to curb inflation.
Bitcoin has declined about 6% over the past 24 hours to its weakest level in three months, while Ether was more than 8% lower as it built on last week’s losses after the Ethereum blockchain shifted from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake.
While the so-called Merge was seen as a ‘sell on the news event’, it appears that comments from the Securities and Exchange Commission that Ether may now be regarded as a security rather than a currency may be making investors nervous.
Some of the smaller coins, including Tether, USD coin and Binance USD were steady. But BNB shed close to 5%, while XRP fell more than 7%.
While Cardano, Solana, Dogecoin and Polkadot appeared to be attempting a break higher, losses over the past 24 hours still ranged from 5% to 8%.
The market is expected to remain volatile ahead of those rates announcements later this week.
US CPI inflation data for August came in higher than expected at 8.3% when it was released last week.
The market is now pricing in a rate hike of at least 75 basis points when the Federal Reserve wraps up its two-day rate setting meeting on Wednesday.
In the UK, the Bank of England is expected to follow by raising its lending rate by a minimum of 50 basis points on Thursday.
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