Bitcoin was up 0.4 per cent to $29,341 compared to 24 hours earlier

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices waned following an early Thursday morning rally in Asia that started after the U.S. Federal Reserve hiked interest rates.

Bitcoin was up 0.4 per cent to $29,341 compared to 24 hours earlier. The CoinDesk Bitcoin Index rose to $29,673 as a result of the Fed’s vote to hike its rate benchmark by 25 bps. The CoinDesk Market Index recently rose 0.7 per cent. Ether, the Ethereum blockchain’s cryptocurrency, advanced 0.7 per cent to trade at $1,871.

In spite of that, bitcoin stays well off its July high of $31,800 and largely resistant to macroeconomic events that over the past year have caused more volatile price reactions.

Lex Sokolin, managing partner of Web3 investment fund Generative Ventures said that the Fed announcement does not change the crypto story. We are already in a risk-off environment. Things could, maybe, get more catastrophic with war or recession, but tech and finance are at a quite steady valuation, with artificial intelligence possibly being an exception.

He anticipates “a few more rate hikes,” but “the hardest work, which was to absorb the Covid supply chain shock and the associated subsidized money printing, is done.”

The wider crypto market moved strongly into positive territory with several altcoins maintaining or building on previous gains. Origin Protocols’ OGN token was around 20 per cent higher recently compared to 24 hours earlier. Compound’s COMP, Stellar’s XLM and Solana’s SOL were up more than 13 per cent, 11 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively. Dogecoin was an exception, declining over 4.3 per cent, renouncing some of its double-digit gains from the day before.