Bitcoin at $30k, Ether at $1.9k ahead of CPI, ETH upgrade

Bitcoin topped the $30k mark for the first time since June 2022

Bitcoin (BTC) sat strongly above $30k on Tuesday as investors waited for Wednesday’s U.S. consumer price index (CPI) report for March as well as Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade.

The biggest crypto currency in terms of market value was recently above $30,200, more than 3 per cent higher during the last 24 hours. Bitcoin topped the psychologically crucial $30k mark late Monday evening for the first time since June 2022. Experts expect the March consumer price index to continue a recent cooling trend with the YOY rate increasing 5.2 per cent, down from February’s 6 per cent. The month-over-month rate is expected to cool as well.

Analysts at K33 Research underlined in a note to clients on Tuesday that open interest (OI) in Bitcoin perpetuals soared by 10 per cent to 297k Bitcoin on Monday to hit its highest daily growth in open interest since early October. That surge was followed by volatility and an intraday fall.

While Bitcoin’s performance after surges in open interest has been diverse, it has tended to foreshadow long or short squeezes, analysts stated, adding that similar daily growth in open interest took place during a spring rally last year and prior to the short squeeze of July 2021.

Ether (ETH), the second-biggest crypto currency, was recently trading at nearly $1,895, 0.3 per cent higher from Monday, same time. Validators and market watchers will keep an eye on Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade, which is anticipated to go live Wednesday evening and will mean that validators can withdraw their Ether from the Beacon Chain.

Crypto data company Kaiko underlined in a Tuesday report that Ether markets have been heavily spot-driven in the last month, with the perpetual futures-to-spot ratio reaching its lowest mark since the network’s Merge in September. On the contrary, that ratio had soared to around double pre-Merge levels at the beginning of the year.

Among other digital tokens, Solana’s SOL soared more than 12 per cent to trade near $23.2, while ETC, the token of Ethereum Classic, an offshoot, or fork, of Ethereum, advanced more than 4 per cent to $21.6.