It’s been another eventful week in the crypto space.
Bitcoin continued to reach highs not seen since the digital asset crashed in May 2022: the largest virtual coin hit $39,000 on Friday before falling again.
According to CoinGecko, it is currently trading for $38,806 per coin. That’s a 24-hour increase of about 1%. It is up 3% for the week.
The reason for the asset’s rise was likely due in part to a dovish forecast from the Federal Reserve: Gov. Christopher J. Waller said on Tuesday that while U.S. inflation was still high, he was “increasingly confident that policy “I am currently well positioned to slow down.” to stimulate the economy and bring inflation back to 2 percent.
Since the Fed began aggressively raising interest rates last year, investors have typically avoided “risky” assets like technology stocks and cryptocurrencies.
According to James Butterfill, head of research at European digital asset manager CoinShares, Waller’s comments have had a “favorable impact” on Bitcoin prices.
Elsewhere, obscure meme coins have seen a surge in interest – and not necessarily for the right reasons.
Former Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger died earlier this week. The legendary investor famously criticized Bitcoin. After his death, trading in an Ethereum-based token, MUNGER, began.
It rose a whopping 31,000% before crashing.
And after divisive diplomat and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday, the price of a series of Ethereum-based coins minted in his honor soared.
As if that wasn’t enough, on Friday, after it was announced that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of his comments, began to trade.
The world’s richest man is no stranger to the bizarre world of meme coins (volatile cryptocurrencies based on internet jokes and trends): Musk previously openly supported Dogecoin, the original meme coin and the 10th largest digital asset.
By the way, Dogecoin is now trading for $0.0842 – and is the best-performing cryptocurrency of the week after rising almost 8% in seven days.
The total crypto market cap currently stands at $1.52 trillion, up 1.2% from the previous day.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.