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Bitcoin Momentum Ebbs Heading Into Last Stretch of Record Year - BLOOMBERG
(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin is flagging in the last leg of a record-breaking year.
The digital asset changed hands at about $93,944 as of 06:08 a.m. in New York on Tuesday, roughly $14,000 below the all-time peak set on Dec. 17. The cryptocurrency has dipped to its 50-day moving average, which some view as a reason for caution.
The test of the closely watched average warrants “a move back to a neutral bias” amid a “consolidation phase” for the token, Fairlead Strategies LLC technical analyst Katie Stockton wrote in a note.
Bitcoin’s pullback reflects expectations of slower Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts in 2025, an outlook that has tempered the speculative ardor generated by President-elect Donald Trump’s push for relaxed US crypto regulations. The Republican has also backed the idea of creating a national Bitcoin stockpile.
In the latest developments in the US, crypto friendly Senator-elect Bernie Moreno was picked for the chamber’s banking committee. The digital-asset industry anticipates a boom based on the preponderance of crypto proponents in Trump’s incoming administration.
MicroStrategy Purchases
Meanwhile MicroStrategy Inc. announced it had purchased an additional $561 million of Bitcoin at an average price near last week’s record high. That marked the seventh week in a row of purchases for the dot-com-era software maker turned leveraged Bitcoin proxy.
Trump used to be a digital-asset skeptic but pivoted as the sector spent big on promoting its interests during US election campaigning. Bitcoin has jumped approximately 40% since he emerged victorious after Election Day on Nov. 5 and set about undoing a Biden administration crypto crackdown.
US exchange-traded funds investing directly in Bitcoin have attracted more than $12 billion of net inflows since Trump became president-elect. But the pace of subscriptions slowed lately, including the highest one-day outflow from the group of one dozen ETFs on Dec. 19.
The largest digital asset has rallied 125% so far this year, exceeding the returns from traditional investments such as global stocks and gold. A wider crypto market gauge, encompassing smaller tokens such as Ether and meme-crowd favorite Dogecoin, has also doubled.
--With assistance from Sidhartha Shukla.
(Updates prices.)
