Bitcoin traded in a narrower range last week with upper and lower bounds of which moving lower and higher respectively from the previous week’s positions. The price is above $27,500 currently, below middle of two Fibonacci levels. The RSI remained around 50 level for the most part of the week. The price forecast is bearish still as bulls proved unable to wrangle back market control and bears are pushing the price lower currently.
Stocks traded lower last week while the Federal Reserve raised rates tenth time - by another quarter point to a target range of 5% to 5.25%. Fed chair Powell said that it may be too soon to cut rates while shares of US regional banks remain under pressure. Meanwhile North Carolina House voted to ban digital dollar payments to the State, White House is proposing a significant tax on crypto mining and JPMorgan says institutional investors prefer gold to Bitcoin because of US regulatory pressure.
The House of Representatives of the North Carolina voted 118-0 to pass an amended version of a bill prohibiting the state's agencies and institutions from accepting payments in central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The bill was, in fact, introduced in early April under the title "No Cryptocurrency Payments to State." Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is proposing similar legislation to ban CBDC payments in his state.
The Biden administration is advocating that crypto miners pay a tax equal to 30% of their energy costs. White House’s Council of Economic Advisers justifies the tax by contending that “crypto mining does not generate the local and national economic benefits typically associated with businesses using similar amounts of electricity.” The tax could raise up to $3.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years, according to their estimate.
The US regulatory crackdown is pushing American crypto firms to look for opportunities overseas, the JP Morgan research report claims. The clampdown has “deterred institutional investors from engaging with crypto,” says JP Morgan, and investors have been buying gold rather than bitcoin (BTC) as a hedge against a potential “catastrophic scenario” in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
