New Milestone

Chart of the Day

On Thursday evening (Asian trading hours), it was revealed that the U.S. inflation figures have jumped a little more than expected in January, adding some urgency to the U.S. Federal Reserve's planned rates hike in March. On a related note, most market participants seem to be anticipating an accelerated rate hike, with some even projecting an increment of a full percentage point by the end of July. The money markets plummeted on hot CPI prints, whilst the broader crypto market also flipped red again after yet another short-lived relief rally. BTC is currently trading precariously above the $43k support after a failed attempt to break above the $45.5k level, and further losses await if it fails to rise above the key resistance near the $44.2k level. In a similar vein, ETH is now trading below the $3,100 level after shedding 3% of its market value within the last 24 hours. Despite this temporary setback in price actions, there has been some exciting development with regard to the Bitcoin network's scaling solutions. By recently achieving an all-time high in public network capacity, the Lightning Network has hit yet another huge milestone, and its growth has inspired an uptick in Bitcoin's velocity, an indicator that measures the vibrancy of the network that has been largely flat for the past couple of years.