Why is Bitcoin price up today?

Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied to $69,483 after the Wall Street open on June 12, as markets reacted to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data and its implications for potential interest rate cuts in 2024.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and Coinbase shows that the BTC price rose 2% within an hour, adding $1,760 to its value as the May CPI print came in cooler than expected.

Bitcoin rallies on cooler-than-expected CPI data

Bitcoin price reacted to the May CPI reading, which remained flat, missing economist forecasts for a 0.1% rise and down from 0.3% in April, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The year-on-year rate was 3.3%, also 0.1 pp lower than forecast.

According to BLS’ official release, “the index for shelter rose in May, up 0.4 percent for the fourth consecutive month,” offsetting a decline in gasoline.

Immediately after the CPI data was released, market participants began debating whether the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates in 2024.

According to the CME’s FedWatch tool, traders anticipate five or six 25 basis point (bps) cuts in this year. This had shrunk to one or two before today’s CPI reading, with the first cut not expected until September.

The Kobeissi Letter reacted to the CPI data release, saying that the markets have officially priced in two interest rate cuts this year.

On whether the Fed is likely to begin cutting interest rates, the global capital markets analysis company noted,

“The odds of no cuts have fallen from 33% to 24% over the last few minutes, according to @Kalshi. Meanwhile, market-implied odds of exactly 2 rate cuts have spiked from 21% to 35%.”

Bitcoin short liquidations surge

BTC’s rise above the $69,000 mark has caused a spike in the liquidation of crypto-leveraged positions.

Crypto investor Crypto_0x spotted BTC trading at $69,434, saying, “The abrupt pullback resulted in over $250 million in liquidations of leveraged derivatives trading positions across all cryptocurrency assets.”

Data from Coinglass shows that over the last 24 hours, $101 million worth of long crypto positions were liquidated, compared to $86 million worth of short liquidations.

Approximately $16.34 million of Bitcoin shorts were liquidated in the last four hours alone, against only $2.1 million long positions.

The largest single liquidation order happened on OKX for the ETH/USDT pair valued at $5.21 million.

Traders expect Bitcoin’s bullish price action to continue, leading the wider market into the much-awaited bull run.

Related: Bitcoin braces for CPI, FOMC as exchanges shed $1.2B of BTC in a day

Traders say rare indicator shows Bitcoin price still bullish

Independent analyst Moustache shared Bitcoin’s weekly chart, showing that the Bollinger Band Width Percentile (BBWP) indicator had sent a rare signal.

Derived from the Bollinger Band Width indicator, the BBWP shows the percentage of bars over a specified lookback period.

Moustache explained that this is the first time in the history of Bitcoin that the indicator “shows 4 blue bars.”

“We’re talking about a volatility indicator here, which means: The more bars, the more volatility we can expect.”

According to the analyst, the price remains bullish as long as BTC stays above the 20-week exponential moving average (EMA).

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.