- Litecoin, BNB, and other crypto prices remained in a tight range.
- Tron has soared to a multi-year high as demand rose.
- The crypto fear and greed index has retreated recently.
Cryptocurrency prices remained under pressure on Monday morning as investors reflected on last week’s strong Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) data. These numbers revealed that the American economy added over 350k jobs in January while the unemployment rate remained intact at 3.7%.
Wage growth also accelerated, meaning that the economy is firing on all cylinders. A few days before that, data revealed that the manufacturing PMI jumped above 50 in January, signaling that manufacturers are doing well.
The report came after the Federal Reserve concluded its first monetary policy meeting of the year. In that meeting, they left interest rates unchanged while Jerome Powell ruled out against a rate cut in March as some analysts were expecting.
These events are important because, together with Bitcoin halving and ETF approvals, cryptocurrencies also jumped because of hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates soon. Now, most analysts believe that the Fed will cut rates in June or later in the third quarter.
As a result, most cryptocurrencies have remained under intense pressure. Litecoin (LTC) has dropped to $67 from the year-to-date high of $77. It also remains much lower than its 2023 high of over $120. The key challenge for Litecoin is that its daily usage in payments has remained under pressure for a long time.
Meanwhile, Binance Coin (BNB) price retreated to $304, down from the YTD high of $338. Other cryptocurrencies like Cardano, Injective, and Solana have also gone nowhere in the past few weeks. The only big cryptocurrency that is soaring is Tron, whose TRX token surged to a high of $0.12, its highest point in years.
Tron has proven to be uncorrelated to other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. For one, its current rally started in June 2021 when the token bottomed at $0.046. Bitcoin’s rally started in 2023 when it fell to $15,000.
The closely watched fear and greed index has moved to the neutral point of 50. In most cases, this index tends to retreat when cryptocurrencies are wavering. The CNN Money fear and greed index has moved to the greed zone of 67 as US equities have surged.
