Bitcoin surged past $66,000 early Thursday morning, having seen a 6.6% increase since this time yesterday.$66,245.22. That’s 8.3% higher than it was this time last week. The past day has seen $82 billion worth of BTC change hands, according to Coinglass.Bitcoin has been helped along by signs that inflation in the U.S. has started to wane. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data showing that consumer prices had fallen for the first time in six months. That’s good news for risk-on investors who trade cryptocurrency and stocks. The Consumer Price Index is one of the key metrics that the Federal Reserve tracks when deciding when (or whether) to lower federal interest rates in the states. So when the CPI shows that inflation is starting to improve, it raises the likelihood that the Fed will lower rates in 2024.Currently, 54% of investors seem to think it’s likely the Fed will lower rates in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. The tool uses data from the federal funds futures market—essentially measuring how investors are hedging against future rate changes—to calculate the probability of a change in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) target rate.
