It was another interesting week in the crypto sphere.
Bitcoin continues to hit highs not seen since the May 2022 crash of the digital asset: the largest virtual coin touched $39,000 on Friday before falling again.
It now trades at $38,806 according to CoinGecko. This is a 24-hour increase of about 1%. In a week, it increased by 3%.
The rise in assets may be due in part to a dovish forecast from the Federal Reserve: Governor Christopher J. Waller said Tuesday that although inflation remains high in the U.S., “policy is now very confident that the economy and inflation will return to 2 percent.”
Investors have typically avoided “risky” assets like tech stocks and crypto since the Fed began raising interest rates sharply last year.
Waller's comments, according to James Butterfill, head of research at European digital asset manager CoinShares, “had a positive effect” on Bitcoin's price.
Elsewhere, obscure meme coins have experienced a surge in demand—and not for the right reasons.
Former Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger passed away earlier this week. The famous investor famously dismissed Bitcoin. After its passing, an Ethereum-based token, MUNGER, began trading.
It rose by 31,000% before the crash.
And after the death of divisive diplomat and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Wednesday, several Ethereum-based coins raised in his honor have soared.
As if that wasn't enough, on Friday, following the news that Tesla CEO and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk told companies like Apple, IBM and Ubisoft to “fuck yourself” in an interview, a lot of meme coinage has formed around it. The comments started trading.
The world's richest man is no stranger to the fascinating world of meme coins (volatile crypto-currencies based on internet jokes and trends): Musk was apparently backing the first meme coin and the 10th largest digital asset, Dogecoin.
Coincidentally, Dogecoin is now trading at $0.0842 – and is the best-performing cryptocurrency of the week, up nearly 8% in seven days.
The total crypto market cap now stands at $1.52 trillion, a 1.2% jump from the previous day.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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