by David Wagner with Marco Oehrl and Daniel Shvartsman
Investing.com - Similar to the risk aversion that plagued it earlier this week, Bitcoin benefited yesterday from a renewed appetite for risky assets, and as a result, managed to regain the key psychological threshold of $30,000 broken the day before. In early Friday morning trading, the leading cryptocurrency is up 1.6% to $30,447 as of 1045 CET (845 GMT).
The stock markets rose sharply on Thursday in Europe and the United States, with the NASDAQ Composite leading the way, ending the day up 2.69%.
The BTC/USD trend looks fragile and the cryptocurrency could resume its downward path at any time and fall back below $30,000. It's notable that leading bitcoin alternative ETH/USD, for example, was not following suit, down .9% to $1809.
Will The Risk-On Trade Stick For Bitcoin?
This is especially true as risk appetite could be short-lived, as risks of a recession persist even with yesterday's market rise.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)'s CEO Elon Musk was the latest to intimate a major layoff plan, saying he wants to cut about 10% of the Tesla workforce in an email seen by Reuters. This comes after JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon warned of an "economic hurricane" on Wednesday night, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:MSFT) lowered its earnings and sales forecasts for the current quarter.
The cryptocurrency sector has also felt the impact of the current economic gloom, with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) announcing in a blog post by HR director L.J. Brock that it would be "extending its hiring pause for new and replacement positions for the foreseeable future and cancelling a number of accepted offers", suggesting the company is preparing for a crypto winter.
The move came just hours after the crypto-currency exchange and custodian Gemini, the brainchild of billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, announced that it was laying off 10% of its workforce, or about 100 employees.
Thresholds to watch for in Bitcoin
From a technical perspective, note that BTC/USD faces immediate resistance at $30,700, followed by around $31,400, then $32,400, and $32,700.
On the downside, $30,000 is the first key threshold to watch, before $28,000 and then this year's low at $26,600.