Bitcoin (BTC) trades above $24,000 on Thursday as inflation in the world’s largest economy, the United States slows down.

As expected, the flagship cryptocurrency was accompanied by a number of altcoins in the new rally, leading to an all-round green across the crypto markets. 

According to the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, inflation in the United States has relatively slowed down but remains elevated. The Fed, therefore hiked the interest rate by 25 basis points (0.25). 

“Inflation has eased somewhat but remains elevated…we can now say, I think for the first time, the deflationary process has started.” Powell said during a press conference after a two days meeting of the Fed. 

Before the announcement, Bitcoin had met a strong resistance around $23,800. The news saw bitcoin trade at $24,255 according to Coinmarketcap. This is the first time BTC will tip above the $24,000 mark in 2023.

Riding on the news, a number of Altcoins including Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB) MATIC and SAND also rose alongside Bitcoin, leading to the crypto market cap increasing by more than $40 billion shortly after the news. 

While the second most capitalised cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH) traded at $1,696 on Thursday, recording a single-digit gain of 8%, other altcoins such as Matic and SAND recorded a double-digit gain within a few hours after the news. Data from the Binance platform reveals. 

Furthermore, Investors King gathered that a significant number of crypto enthusiasts welcome the recent development, stating that it is a confirmation that cryptocurrency could perform well in 2023. 

Meanwhile, a well-known crypto analyst, PlanB holds the opinion that Bitcoin could be on its way to a triple top cycle which might see BTC trade above $65,000 in 2023. 

Similarly, the rising number of retail and institutional investors scooping Bitcoin and other high-cap digital currencies could help to ignite the next rally. 

The world’s most dominant cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is currently being sold at a 63% premium in Nigeria as foreign exchange scarcity amid the new cap on banks’ withdrawals increased demand for the unregulated virtual currency.

Bitcoin price skyrocketed to N17.8 million or $38,630 a coin on Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform mostly used by retail traders in Africa’s largest economy.

In the global market, Bitcoin price stood at $23,656 per coin at about 9:37 am Nigerian time on Monday, January 30, 2023. Indicating that the digital currency is being sold at $14,974 or a 63% premium over the current price of the commodity, Investors King research has shown.

Chronic foreign exchange scarcity due to a series of weak fundamental factors has plunged the Nigerian Naira against its global counterparts since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The Nigerian Naira is presently trading at N460 to a United States Dollar on the interbank forex section while at the parallel or black market, the local currency traded at N750 to a US$1 in the early hours of Monday.

Cryptocurrency traders and businesses in Nigeria mainly traded using the black market rate because of the inaccessibility of N460/$1. Therefore, it is the rate quoted and used on Binance Peer2Peer (p2p) platform and other foreign exchange segments where the dollar is readily available.

This wide foreign exchange rate coupled with the new Naira policy that restricted withdrawals to N500,000 per week for individuals and N5 million for corporate entities bolstered demand for digital assets.

Bitcoin price plunged from $68,990 to $15,480 in 2022 after Luna declined from $119 a coin or over $40 billion market capitalisation to zero.

Shortly after, other cryptocurrency assets like Solana, Ethereum, BNB, etc lost substantial value and kick-started cryptocurrency’s largest bearish trend since 2009.

Solana dropped from around $200 a coin to $12, currently trading at $25. Ethereum dipped from almost $5,000 to $800 per coin while BNB halted its decline at $196 before pulling back to $300 at the time of writing, still below the $600 attain in 2022.

Bitcoin is the most capitalised cryptocurrency at $448.92 billion. Year-to-date, the digital asset has returned 40.17%.

The cryptocurrency space came alive in the last 24 hours to extend its gains for the week despite growing global uncertainties amid recession fears.

Bitcoin, the world’s most dominant cryptocurrency, appreciated by 4.53% in the last 24 hours to take its gains to 12.64% in the last 7 days.

In the last 7 days, Eth, the token of the Ethereum protocol, has gained 21.36% from about $1000 a coin it traded a week ago to $1,235.67 on Thursday.

Similarly, BNB extended its gains to $242.45, an increase of 1.40% in 24 hours and 14.33% in the last 7 days to underscore a possible shift in the financial markets towards cryptocurrency, especially with global assets, both traditional haven assets like gold and even risk assets like stocks, commodities, etc, trading at a record-low.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies crashed after Luna stablecoin plunged from over $40 billion market value or $90 a coin to about $800,000 in market value or $0.00004 a coin. The huge decline and the speed in which it happens, three days, sent a shocking wave to the investment world and alerted people to the danger of investing in an unproven and regulated space like cryptocurrency.

However, seasoned traders have said it is not unique and newbies would have to learn that in cryptocurrency investing, there are bearish and bullish seasons. This, they attributed to the Bitcoin Halving, a process in which Bitcoin reward for miners is halved after every 210,000 blocks or four years.

Still, experts like Changpeng Zhao, the Chief Executive Officer of Binance and the richest cryptocurrency investor alive, had called on people to only invest in cryptocurrency projects with real-world use cases.

Popularly known as CZ and estimated by Bloomberg to have a net worth of $96 billion, had repeatedly said the cryptocurrency space is here to stay and encourages inventors and innovators to focus on solving real-life problems.