Bitcoin (BTC): The largest cryptocurrency by market value was recently trading at $23,100, up 0.4% in the past 24 hours, as traders awaited next week’s Federal Open Market Committee decision on interest rates. BTC has rallied almost 40% since Jan. 1, on track for its best opening to a year since 2013 when it surged 51%.

Equities closed up as traders processed the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report, which showed a slowdown in inflation at the end of last year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.95%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) were up 0.25% and 0.08%, respectively.

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Four senior Biden administration officials published a statement on Friday urging Congress to “step up its efforts” with respect to regulating the cryptocurrency market.

The officials – Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council; Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Cecilia Rouse, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors; and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan – wrote that Congress “should expand regulators’ powers to prevent misuses of customers’ assets … and to mitigate conflicts of interest.”Other suggestions for Congress in the statement included strengthening transparency and disclosure requirements for crypto companies, strengthening penalties for violations of illicit-finance rules and working more closely with international law enforcement partners.The officials also made suggestions about what Congress should not do in terms of crafting new crypto regulation, including “greenlight[ing] mainstream institutions, like pension funds, to dive headlong into cryptocurrency markets.”To do so, the officials warned, “would be a grave mistake” that “deepens ties between cryptocurrencies and the broader financial system.”

Ether (ETH): ETH was up 0.2% to recently trade at $1,600.

Polygon (MATIC): The MATIC token recently rose 8% to $1.1 Friday. Its price has been up 55% since Dec. 31 amid a spike in daily transactions.

Gains Network (GNS): The native token of decentralized exchange gained more than 7% to trade at $6.20 Friday, according to data from CoinGecko. Gains Network has recorded over $1.5 billion in trading volume on the Arbitrum blockchain nearly a month after being deployed.

Vela Exchange (DXP): The utility token of the Arbitrum-based decentralized trading platform recently gained some 50% Friday as the project prepares to release its much-anticipated beta version next week. DXP had settled back to a 26% advance, trading around $2.20 as of publication time, according to data from CoinGecko.

By Glenn Williams Jr.

Markets next week will be eyeing the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate decision, largely expected to be a 25 basis point (bps) increase

BTC’s correlation with the S&P 500 has waned slightly over the last week, declining to 0.69 from 0.89 on Jan 11. Its correlation with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite remains elevated at 0.89, underscoring the “bitcoin trades like a high-beta tech stock” narrative.

Meanwhile, bullish investors should be wary about the stablecoin supply ratio (SSR).

The SSR measures the ratio between the supplies of bitcoin and stablecoins. As stablecoins represent buying power, a reduction in the SSR implies that investors are sending stablecoins to exchanges, likely for the purpose of buying bitcoin. Since Jan. 11, the SSR has increased 32%. So while BTC’s price has risen, investors do not appear to be sending stablecoins to exchanges en masse to add to long positions.

Read the full technical take here.

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