Bitcoin (BTC) extended its gains, hitting nearly $45 thousand on March 1 as interest rate speculators reduced their bets on aggressive rate hikes in 2022 and the number of whale addresses spiked amid speculations that BTC is proving itself as an apolitical safe-haven.
Traders reduce half-point bets for March
BTC’s price surged more than 4% to reach nearly $45,000, a day after recording its biggest one-day increase since February 2021 as a flurry of sanctions on Russia, including a ban from accessing the global banking system SWIFT, raised concerns over their impact on global growth and inflation.
For instance, swaps tied to the Federal Reserve’s mid-March meeting anticipated a 24.5 basis point (bps) tightening as of March 1, 2022. That indicated a 0.5 bps rate increase — which had a 100% approval from interest rate traders last month — is less likely to happen.
Meanwhile, traders also reduced their expectations of the number of rate hikes in 2022 to five from seven just days ago, according to Bloomberg’s Lisa Abramowicz, who shared the following chart.
