Crypto market looks bearish ahead of CPI report, BTC at $60k

The cryptocurrency market shows signs of an incoming correction hours before the U.S. Consumer Price Index report is released.

The global crypto market capitalization declined 3.3% in the past 24 hours, sitting at $2.22 trillion, per data from CoinGecko. The market-wide trading volume has been moving between $80 billion and $87 billion as bears continue to dominate.

Bitcoin (BTC) plunged below $61,000 and is trading at $60,800 at the time of writing. The leading cryptocurrency briefly touched an intraday low of $60,300 earlier today.

According to data provided by Santiment, whale transactions consisting of at least $100,000 worth of BTC declined from 10,098 to 8,176 over the past day. Declining whale activity usually hints at market uncertainty or selloff from retail traders.

Notably, the BTC funding rate recorded a strong surge from 0.004% to 0.007% over the past 24 hours. The indicator shows that the amount of bets on Bitcoin’s price movement is mostly bullish. However, a fall below the $60,000 mark could bring increased liquidations, and consequently, a further correction.

Bitcoin’s Relative Strength Index is currently at 45, per Santiment data. The RSI shows that BTC is currently at a neutral zone ahead of the U.S. CPI report, scheduled for today.

The U.S. CPI for August came at 2.5%, a level not seen since March 2021, and is expected to drop to 2.3%. This could increase the chances of another rate cut at the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting on Nov. 6 and 7.

One of the bullish catalysts for last week was the U.S. jobs report, sending the BTC price above $64,000. If the U.S. inflation cools down again, bullish momentum would be expected in financial markets, including crypto.