Bitcoin price steady above $28,000 on course for best quarter since 2021 as altcoins slip
Quick Take
- Bitcoin continues to trade above $28,000. Ether dipped about 1%.
- Altcoins pared some of the previous day’s gains, with Solana’s SOL dropping 3% and Ripple’s XRP down 1%.
Bitcoin continues to trade above $28,000 while the broader crypto market is trending lower.
The leading cryptocurrency by market cap was trading around $28,350, by 11:45 a.m. EST, up about 0.2%, according to TradingView data. Ether was down 1% over the same period, trading below $1,800.
Altcoins slipped as well. Binance's BNB fell 0.2%, Ripple's XRP was down 1%, and Cardano's ADA dropped 1.8%. Solana's SOL and Litecoin's LTC experienced slightly sharper sell-offs, falling 3% and 2.2%, respectively.
Crypto trading firm QCP Digital noted that bitcoin is heading for its best quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2021 — "barring a major surprise tomorrow," the firm added.
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"Tomorrow's large quarter-end option expiry is unlikely to provide the fireworks that other March quarter-ends have done in recent years," QCP said, adding that the speed of the recent spot move and lack of traders' conviction has left the open interest map "spread rather thinly across strikes."
The effect of the CFTC's civil suit against Binance appears to have been largely brushed aside.
"It is likely to go the same way as a suit against Bitmex a few years back, where a large settlement was reached to conclude the affair," QCP Digital wrote. The U.S. government's plethora of open cases versus crypto firms is "almost impossible for markets to price or time."
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