Bitcoin Maintains Above $23K as Traders Focus on Fed's Upcoming Meeting

As investors anticipated the Federal Open Market Committee's interest rate decision next week and any cues policymakers may give about when their rate-hiking campaign would finish, Bitcoin (BTC) stayed over $23,000 on Friday.

The most recently traded cryptocurrency by market capitalization was valued at about $23,100, an increase of 0.1% for the day.

With a price increase of more than 40% since New Year's Eve, bitcoin has had a blazing start to 2023. BTC just crossed $23,000 for the first time since mid-2022 and has maintained that level ever since.

With the S&P 500 Index up approximately 0.3%, traditional markets were also somewhat higher.

The recent Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) data revealed a slowing in inflation at the end of last year, which is what the Fed has been looking for with rate rises, prompting the cryptocurrency gain. According to the CME

FedWatch tool, traders presently predict that the FOMC will increase interest rates by 25 basis points (or 0.25 percentage points) during its February meeting.

Top crypto assets like bitcoin and ether (ETH) have outperformed equities this year thanks to the latest market rally: ETH is up roughly 32% while the CoinDesk Market Index is up 39%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite indexes, in contrast, had gains of 6% and 10%, respectively.