Bitcoin Golden Cross Flickers Off as Rate-Hike Bets Firm Up

In brief

• Bitcoin's daily 50-day EMA dipped back below its 200-day EMA Friday evening as BTC retreated to $77,438, undoing the golden cross that had briefly confirmed earlier in the session.
• The 4-hour chart's golden cross is still intact, but momentum has cooled.
• The reversal tracks a hawkish repricing in rates markets: The odds of a hike at next week's Fed meeting have spiked to 86% per CME.

Bitcoin's brief flirtation with a confirmed daily golden cross is active but didn't survive the afternoon.

BTC is trading around $77,438 right now, still up 1.19% on the day but well off its earlier high near $79,837. The pullback tracks a rates market that turned more hawkish, not less, after inflation numbers landed today.

Today's CPI numbers showed the monthly core reading at 0.3%, hotter than the 0.2% analysts expected. CME FedWatch, which tracks probabilities implied by 30-day Fed funds futures, had the odds of a 25-basis-point interest rate hike at roughly 69% just after the inflation data landed. Those odds have since spiked to 86.5% in just the last few hours.

A rate hike would generally precede a risk off move from investors, meaning risk assets like Bitcoin and tech stocks would take a hit if the Fed decides to raise rates next week at its next meeting.