-- Bitcoin price fell further on Wednesday, briefly slipping below key support levels as anticipation of a Federal Reserve meeting kept traders averse to speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies. 

Recent data showing sustained outflows from Bitcoin investment products, particularly exchange-traded funds (ETFs), also weighed on sentiment, while the launch of new spot crypto ETFs in Hong Kong offered little cheer. 

fell 5% in the past 24 hours to $60,247.5 by 00:32 ET (04:32 GMT). The token had fallen as low as 59,590.2. 

Fed anticipation sees traders prefer dollar over Bitcoin 

Bitcoin’s losses coincided with  a sharp surge in the on Tuesday, which saw the greenback come close to a six-month high.

Traders were largely biased towards the dollar before the conclusion of a on Wednesday, where the central bank is widely expected to keep rates steady.

But Chair Jerome Powell is likely to strike a hawkish chord, especially in the wake of several hotter-than-expected inflation readings.

Expectations of such a scenario saw traders steadily price out expectations of early interest rate cuts by the Fed. The central bank is now expected to begin cutting rates only by September, if at all. 

Higher-for-longer U.S. interest rates bode poorly for Bitcoin and the broader crypto industry, given that the space usually thrives in a low-rate, high-liquidity environment. 

This notion was also a key driver of capital outflows from crypto investment products in recent weeks, as hype over spot Bitcoin ETFs dwindled in the face of higher-for-longer rates. 

Crypto price today: Altcoins track Bitcoin losses

Broader crypto prices also retreated as sentiment remained dour. World no.2 crypto fell 5.1% to $3,009.19, while and lost 2.6% and 7.8%, respectively. 

On the regulatory front, disgraced Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws. 

Zhao was once considered the most powerful man in crypto, and is the second major crypto CEO to be sentenced to prison after FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried in 2023. But Zhao’s sentence was substantially milder than the 25 years received by Bankman-Fried.