Bitcoin Tops $61K Before Powell’s Jackson Hole Speech as Ether ETFs Face Record Outflows

Bitcoin (BTC) rose through $61,000 in Asian trading hours while being mainly confined between that level and $59,000 over the past two weeks. Some traders are looking to the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, scheduled for later Friday, for comments that may influence markets.

Major tokens were little changed, with ether (ETH), Solana’s SOL, BNB Chain’s BNB and xrp (XRP) moving less than 2% in 24 hours. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid meaure tracking the largest tokens by market capitalization, rose 1.7%.

Cardano’s ADA added 3%, while Avalanche’s AVAX jumped 10% after the blockchain was added as a network option for Franklin Templeton’s OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX). FOBXX started trading in 2021 and became the first money-market fund to use a public blockchain to record transactions and ownership.

Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed in the U.S. recorded $64 million in inflows, extending a winning streak to six days. Market leader BlackRock’s IBIT took on the highest inflows at $75 million, data shows. However, some firms consider a general slowdown in the rate of inflows to be bearish.

Ethereum ETFs, in contrast, extended a record outflow streak to six days, continuing a dismal first month for products tracking the world’s second-largest token by market cap. These ETFs lost just over $800,000 on Thursday, taking cumulative outflows to over $458 million since they went live on July 23.

Some market participants are looking to the annual Jackson Hole meeting later Friday for comments that may indicate the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy direction, which will influence prices of risk assets including bitcoin.

“The downward revision of U.S. non-farm payrolls highlighted a weaker labor market, sparking concerns that the Fed might delay rate cuts, triggering a selloff,” QCP Capital noted in a Telegram broadcast Thursday, referring to a Wednesday report on jobs growth in the year ended March. “These worries eased after the July FOMC minutes revealed some policymakers were open to rate cuts, signaling a more dovish stance balancing inflation and employment goals.”

“Attention now turns to Fed Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech tomorrow for more rate-cut signals. With markets betting heavily on rate cuts, unexpected economic data can have a significant impact. We favor principal-protected products capturing topside gains,” QCP said.

Powell is expected to confirm a pivot to lower borrowing costs next month, as previously reported. This step has historically buoyed bullish sentiment among traders because access to cheap money ofter spurs growth in riskier sectors.

Some are taking a cautious view, however.

“Risk markets might be more disappointed as Powell might want to do their best to give themselves some wiggle room against the four cumulative cuts priced into the year-end,” Augustine Fan, head of insights at SOFA, told CoinDesk in an interview. “That said, Jackson Hole has generally been a ‘risk-positive’ stock even in the past, so expect traders to be better buyers on dips.”