[Bitcoin Now] Decline Amid US Interest Rate Hike Concerns... Trading Volume Also Down

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] Ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate hike, the price of Bitcoin, the representative cryptocurrency, is showing a slight downward trend.

According to the domestic cryptocurrency exchange Upbit on the 16th, as of 9:56 a.m., the price of Bitcoin was 48.55 million KRW, down 0.19% (90,000 KRW) from the previous day. At the same time, according to the global cryptocurrency market tracking site CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin was trading at $39,216 (48.76 million KRW), down 0.78% compared to the previous day.

As the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is expected to raise the benchmark interest rate by about 0.25 percentage points this week, cryptocurrency investment sentiment appears to have weakened. Although the MiCA bill, which could ban the use of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, was rejected by the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, leading to a rise of more than 2% the previous day, concerns about tightening monetary policy could not be avoided.

Trading volume is also showing a declining trend. According to CoinMarketCap, the 24-hour Bitcoin trading volume decreased by 2.6% from the previous day to $23,786,179,167 (approximately 29.571 trillion KRW).

Upbit operator Dunamu's Digital Asset Fear & Greed Index fell by 0.27 from the previous day to 43.67, recording a 'neutral' stage. Compared to 51 (neutral) a week ago on the 9th, it dropped by 7.33. Dunamu's Digital Asset Fear & Greed Index is divided into stages of 'Extreme Fear (0?20)', 'Fear (20?40)', 'Neutral (40?60)', 'Greed (60?80)', and 'Extreme Greed (80?100)'. The greed direction indicates increased interest in buying among market participants, while moving toward fear indicates a fear of asset decline, causing market exits and a chain reaction of price drops.