Risk aversion in the market intensifies

Crypto markets opened lower this week as investors awaited the Federal Reserve and its upcoming interest rate decision and May's consumer price index (CPI).

Bitcoin data showed that Bitcoin once broke through the $70,000 mark in the early trading, hitting a high of $70,195, and turned down in the afternoon and returned to the support level near $69,600.

Altcoins fell more than they rose. Among the top 200 tokens by market capitalization, Polymesh (POLYX) led the gains, reaching 9.7%; followed by Gnosis (GNO), up 8.6%; Livepeer (LPT) rose 5.5%. Wormhole (W) fell the most, reaching 18%; Biconomy (BICO) fell 17.1%; Echelon Prime (PRIME) fell 10%.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap is currently $2.53 trillion, with Bitcoin accounting for 54.1%.

As of Monday's close, the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all rose, up 0.26%, 0.18% and 0.35%, respectively.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange's FedWatch tool shows that traders expect the probability of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates in September to 49% from 60% a week ago.

ETF inflows continue

The inflow data for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is relatively optimistic, with $131 million flowing into ETF products on Friday, the 19th consecutive day of inflows.

CoinShares' report shows that a total of $1.83 billion flowed into U.S.-listed spot BTC ETFs last week, while global listed digital asset investment products had a net inflow of $2 billion, with a total inflow of $4.3 billion in the last five weeks.

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, said: “We believe that this sentiment shift is a direct response to weaker-than-expected US macro data, which brought expectations of monetary policy rate cuts. The positive price action has pushed total assets under management (AuM) above the $100 billion mark for the first time since March.