Bitcoin hugs $70K range as March Fed rate cut odds fall below 1%

Bitcoin (BTC) circled $70,000 into Thursday’s Wall Street open after US jobs data matched expectations.

Key points:

• Bitcoin shrugs off more US macro data as jobless claims copy flat CPI numbers.

• Oil stays volatile, while markets ignore almost any chance of a March interest-rate cut.

• BTC price action stays indecisive around the $70,000 mark.

Bitcoin surfs new US jobless claims release

Data from TradingView showed ongoing BTC price compression on the day, with BTC/USD acting in an increasingly narrow range.

US initial jobless claims were 213,000 for the week through March 7, just 1,000 below the previous week’s print and 2,000 below market consensus.

The numbers furthered relief over the US economy after Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) release also avoided major deviations from its expected values.

Volatility, however, remained in oil, which was up by more than 5% on the day at the time of writing after initially rising above $95. News of a coordinated release of 400 million barrels from reserves to counteract the Strait of Hormuz impasse thus failed to alter the price trend.

Analyzing the situation, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter suggested that a lack of clarity from US President Donald Trump over how long the Middle East conflict would last was fueling oil’s ongoing surge.

“The reason behind this rally was largely that President Trump was not signaling how long the Iran war would last,” it wrote on X. 

“Since then, the ONLY factor that has changed is that President Trump has said the war will be over ‘pretty quickly.’ However, this also implies that military action will likely continue until at least the end of March.”

The latest inflation prints, meanwhile, did nothing to alter the market’s views of future Federal Reserve policy.

The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showed the odds of an interest-rate cut at the Fed’s March 18 meeting — a key potential crypto tailwind — at less than 1%.

BTC price breakout can take “several more weeks”

Key Bitcoin price levels remained in place as traders waited for directional cues.

Related: Bitcoin braces for oil shock and death crosses: 5 things to know this week

Trader Daan Crypto Trades flagged $72,000 and $62,000 as lines in the sand around spot price, with the Point of Control (PoC) at around $68,000.

“Anything in between will just chop you up as we have been seeing already. Ranges like these can easily take several more weeks before resolving,” he told X followers on Wednesday.

As Cointelegraph reported, consensus stayed bearish on the mid-term outlook, favoring a drop to new macro lows to come. 

Trader and analyst Rekt Capital noted that by historical standards, Bitcoin’s bear market should continue from here.

“Time-wise, Bitcoin will soon be halfway through its Bear Market,” he summarized in one of several recent X updates.

“Retracement-wise however, Bitcoin has already performed 75% of the downside in its Bear Market correction.”