All eyes were on Ethereum last week as it successfully completed another major tech upgrade Shanghai following the Merge event in September and the ETH token price soared.
While ETH has rallied throughout the week, the best-performing Bitcoin this year has been trading more volatile.
Investors are also evaluating the minutes of the Fed’s March meeting, which shows that the central bank expects the effects of the US banking crisis to drag the economy into recession this year.
Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment strategist at BMO, said that a recession would be an important period for cryptocurrencies to show their stance. In his statement, Ma evaluated the process as follows:
“This could be the first recession test for crypto. Will this be a stabilizing event that leads to more institutional and investor interest in crypto? Or will it be an event where people generally lose money and economic concerns spill over into the crypto space? I think it could go either way, but what we’ve seen so far in the crypto space is encouraging.”
In addition, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman (SEC) Gary Gensler will testify before the House Financial Services Committee about his agency’s oversight. Investors will follow this statement to see if Gensler continues to emphasize that most crypto tokens are securities and should fall under securities law.
Ma said he expects to see consolidation around the current $30,000 level for Bitcoin, depending on how it behaves in the face of a slowing economy and how much it can diverge from the Nasdaq.
“The biggest advantage of cryptocurrencies from an investment perspective was the lower correlation. The biggest downside for traders was when it was highly correlated with the Nasdaq. It was around this time that the breadth of institutional investor interest began to wane, because if that’s the primary driver or the primary investment thesis, that’s too much correlation.”
*Not investment advice.