Bitcoin Erases Losses, Holds Near $29.3K as Nasdaq Gains Nearly 2%

As U.S. equity markets closed on Friday, bitcoin (BTC) was up slightly but continued to trade in a slim range.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently changing hands at $29,286, up 0.4% over the past 24 hours. That was also an increase from around $29,100 earlier in the day after the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond rose a hefty 11 basis points to 0.55%.

Overnight, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) had announced a hawkish adjustment to its yield curve control (YCC) program, as CoinDesk previously reported, raising its cap on the 10-year Japanese government bond yield to 1% from 0.5%. The move came amid calls from the International Monetary Fund to begin normalizing that country's ultra-loose policy and could potentially affect global liquidity and risk assets including bitcoin.

ETH, SHIB, ADA

Ether (ETH), the second largest crypto in market value, followed a similar path on Friday and was changing hands at $1,872, an 0.7% gain over the past 24 hours. Other major altcoins tilted a little more to positive territory with popular memecoin SHIB among the brightest stories, recently climbing 6.6% from Thursday, same time. ADA, the token of smart contracts platform Cardano, was up 1.4%.

Inflation news

This morning's report on the PCE Price Index – the U.S. Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge – show prices up 3% year-over-year in June, shy of forecasts for 3.1% and down from 3.8% in May. The core rate fell to 4.1% against estimates for 4.2% and 4.6% previously.

There was little reaction in bitcoin following the backward looking data, but perhaps taking its cue from surging stocks – the Nasdaq closed up 1.9%, helped by a 6% rise in Intel (INTC) following a positive earnings report – the crypto managed an advance to the $29,500 level.

The broader CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) recently moved 0.7% higher for the day.

Gene Hoffman, CEO and president of blockchain and smart-contract platform Chia Network, expects bitcoin to continue trading sideways with a possible slight turn upward in August, a historically slow month in financial markets. "There's no real positive or negative push right now across the market," Hoffman told CoinDesk. "There's no real force to break things one side or the other."

See more: Get professional-grade crypto data and news at CoinDeskMarkets.com