On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve upped its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point. Additional interest rate hikes, as well as tightening of monetary policy, have exacerbated fears that the US economy could enter into a recession.

“The market still needs to digest the impact of tighter monetary policy on all risk assets and crypto might take a hit as correlations [with US stocks increase]”, said Josh Lim, head of derivatives of New York-based brokerage Genesis Global Trading.

On Friday, Bitcoin was down less than 1% at $35,900.25, according to Coin Metrics. Meanwhile, Ether was down 1.1%. 

The crypto sale was sparked by a difficult Thursday on Wall Street where the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 1000 points. Nasdaq also fell 5%. The losses of each marked the worst single-day decline since 2020.