Bitcoin slipped early Thursday as the recent crypto recovery stalled despite renewed confidence that the Federal Reserve will soon start cutting interest rates.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading at $111,000 early in the day, down 0.4% over the past 24 hours. It reached a high of $112,529 late Wednesday. Bitcoin remains more than 2% higher so far in September as it looks to bounce back from a late August slump, which saw it drop from a record above $124,000 to around $108,000.
Other cryptocurrencies were mixed—Ethereum, the second largest coin, rose 0.9% to $4,392 while XRP was 0.2% lower at $2.84. Solana fell 0.8% and Dogecoin was down 0.5%.
Traders have solidified their view that the Fed will cut rates in September after weak job openings data Wednesday. The market now sees a 98% chance of a quarter-point cut when the central bank meets later this month, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, up from 93% yesterday. However, another cut in October is currently being viewed as a 50/50 bet.
Lower borrowing costs tend to support riskier assets, such as cryptocurrencies. But Bitcoin may behaving like a safe haven asset—moving more in tandem with gold than stocks. Gold futures fell 1% early Thursday after rallying to record highs earlier in the week.
Trade Nation analyst David Morrison said that Tuesday’s trading, in particular, highlighted this link. “It was interesting to see the crypto market rally sharply along with gold and the U.S. dollar, amid the most significant pullback in equity prices since the beginning of August. It appears that cryptos were benefiting from safe-haven flows as investors cut their exposure to equities during Tuesday’s risk-off session,” he said.
The stock market had a good day Wednesday and futures are pointing higher again Thursday but cryptos haven’t matched that optimism.
The hype around crypto companies listing on the stock market still appears to be strong, though. American Bitcoin—the Bitcoin mining company backed by President Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr.—jumped 17% on its trading debut Wednesday. It follows the red hot debuts of stablecoin company Circle Internet Group and CoinDesk owner Bullish in recent months.
Write to Callum Keown at callum.keown@dowjones.com
